

















PRESENTED BY 


4 








A WILDERNESS 
OF MONKEYS 


Tubal : One of them showed me a ring that he had 
of your daughter for a monkey. 

Shylock : Out upon her I Thou torture st me. Tubal. 
It was my turquoise ; I had it of Leah when 1 was a 
bachelor : I would not have given it for a wilderness of 
moftkeys. 


A WILDERNESS 
OF MONKEYS 

By FREDERICK NIVEN « « 


NEW YORK 

JOHN LANE COMPANY 

MCMXI 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

THE LOST CABIN MINE 
THE ISLAND PROVIDENCE 



Glfl 

Fliblisias? 

V 

APR 24 1911 


TO 


HOLBROOK JACKSON 



My excellent friend^ you are a citizen of 
Athens^ a city which is very great and very 
famous for wisdom and power of mind ; are 
you not ashamed of caring so much for the 
making of money ^ and for reputation^ and for 
honour ? Will you not care or think about wis- 
dom^ and truths and the perfection of your soul ? 

If any man have two loaves^ let him sell one 
and buy of the white narcissus ; for the one is 
food for the body and the other is food for the 
soul. 


He who hath ears to hear^ let him hear. 



A WILDERNESS OF MONKEYS 


I 

B liss henry took train at Euston, had his 
ticket punched, and then let the world wag 
till he was travelling on a winding, single 
line far from the network of rails at Euston, the 
carriage window open to the upland air, fields of 
purple wavering past, with blue and grey rocks 
jutting up amidst them ; and corried, crannied 
mountains, with birds and mists wavering athwart 
them, delighting him with their wildness ; and, 
where the moors fanned out more widely, little 
pools and tarns lying like brazen shields or fallen 
suns. Or suddenly would come a hissing to the 
ears, a flash of white to the eyes ; the rattle of the 
train would be lulled a moment, crossing a foaming 
river, and when the rattle leapt to life again there 
was a new picture in his heart, of a blue and brown 
river foaming into white over a linn, with a swirling 
pool below, and a long, glossy smoothness above, 
before the leap, where trees stood up dreamily 
against the afternoon sky ; a quick vision of golden 


lO 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


flakes of sun, and green flakes of leaves, and flakes 
of light and shadow under the trees that went down 
to a little sweep of gleaming pebbles. 

Then came the little junction town near the 
river’s mouth (smelling jointly of fish and agricul- 
ture), and the change of trains ; and Bliss Henry 
(you know whom I mean — author of Hhe Jewelled 
Snu-J-Box and like Japanese Fan) went on upon 
the last lap through the mellow land to his chosen 
place, the place out of London in which he was to 
find peace for his work. 

As the landscape glowed and shone past (some- 
what leisurely on that particular line), the sinuous 
railway curving farther into these recesses of peace 
whence the stream came sparkling, he was more 
than elated at his escape from London, at his free- 
dom : the wild roses were to him the roses of 
Waller’s and Ronsard’s lyrics ; the grass, of Par- 
nassus ; the stream, of Helicon. For he was free 
— and he was going away to write another book, 
the idea for which had long delightfully possessed 
him. And he carried with him a cheque for ;^ioo 
— enormous sum to a dreamer. He stilled his heart 
and looked out sanely, as well as intensely, and saw 
the highland stream swirling down through the 
quiet day, told himself he was going on holiday, 
but to work, just as surely as though he were still 
sitting in his back room in Chelsea ; saw the stream 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 1 1 

bordered by waving grass, patches o£ nettles, patches 
of bracken, with here and there tufts of heather. 
These wilderness patches ceased wholly here and 
there, or kept very close to the stream, giving 
place to patches of wheat or turnip fields. Wheat 
patches and patches of wilderness went billowing, 
and the two telegraph wires switchbacked irregularly 
past. 

Bliss Henry took a long breath, gripped himself ; 
he was losing the intoxication of freedom that had 
filled him rushing out of the glass-covered terminus 
in London, and tasting now, crawling to Solway 
by this branch line, its calm. He saw dog-roses 
and clover and bracken, and loved their names ; saw 
flakes of mica shine in broken parts of the black 
banks, and was content that it was not gold he saw. 

Violet and vine, cedar of Lebanon, onyx, chalce- 
dony indeed ! Who was he to sit artificially playing 
with words, making them exotic, when he had, at 
hand, the real thing ? To a man who said of a 
wood of firs that it was like a cathedral he had 
once replied : ‘‘ Let us keep in the open air. 
The insides of cathedrals make me long for forests ; 
they stifle me. I am glad to get out of Saint Paul’s 
always, and to see the outside instead ; and, if a 
flutter of pigeons goes up it, their wings help 
me to imagine a cliff with gulls. You who see 
the pathos in a ‘ young lady ’ saying : ^ Oh, how 


12 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


beautiful these roses are — they are just like wax ! ’ 
should see that ” — and the friend had said : You 
are right, Don Henry.” 

He bent forward closer to the open window. 
The wind, because of the passage of the train, 
made a little fluttering and patting there ; it 
fanned his cheeks, and he looked out newly. 

He saw a yokel leaning on a scythe, a wain 
soaring over a hill-crest on a white road ; he took 
a great breath of the magic air. He heard the 
whir of a reaping machine, the brawling of the 
stream. He snuffed the air, redolent of peat, 
of wheat, of roses — of turnips, and the train went 
winding on, up stream, to Solway, where he was 
to find peace for his work. 


II 


you have gathered already, our author 



had a light heart. And he had need of 


^ ^ it. Like many authors he had begun to 

spill ink before the public in Fleet Street ; and 
like many ink-spillers there he had felt that every 
drop of ink was a new blot on his soul. He must 
have felt this deeply, for on the day that he sold 
his first book to a happy publisher for the sum 
of he gave up Fleet Street — ^with the anything 
from ys. a week to ^14 14s. a week that it had 
brought him. 

He had no “ prospects.” He shut himself up 
in a back room in Chelsea for nine months with 
that and wrote another book for which he 
got £60 in advance of royalty, and, as by that 
time volume number one had gone well, another 
cheque on it for ^40. Hence the £100 that he 
had now. But he was not going to write his next 
book in a top back room, smoking in it all day and 
going out for a walk before bedtime to air it ; 
he was going to the country — like the successful 
authors we read of in the literary notes in the 
Daily Chronicle, 


3 


H 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


He was so immensely happy, seeing the moors 
and the sky, after seeing nothing bright except 
London sky-signs for so many months, that he 
wrote a lyric in the train : 

“ I would go back to my own loved hills 
When I am dying, 

And die to the old, old voice of rills 
Where birds are flying — 

Flying and crying over the hills.” 


Ill 


W ELL, here was actual Solway, the place 
suggested for peace. Here was the 
platform with the six hotel coaches 
backed up just outside, and the hotel porters, with 
the brass names on their caps, loafing over the 
barrier. 

Bliss Henry ran his eye along the caps and 
selected a name — “ The Gamekeeper ” — bookishly, 
I expect, thinking of Richard Jefferies as much 
as of whirring grouse. Other selections were 
‘‘ Royal,” ‘‘ Smith’s Temperance,” “ Grand View,” 
‘‘ Juke’s Commercial ” — but enough of these mean- 
ingless things. There is one thing I am determined 
this book shall not be — and that is meaningless. 
My intention is that it shall be — so far from being 
meaningless — symbolic. 

Anti-climax : Our author walked to “ The 
Gamekeeper,” and his luggage followed on a 
trolley, his immediate luggage that is, a suit-case 
and a valise. 

His cheeks tingling with the air that seemed to 
deify him after the blase air of London, Bliss 
Henry went to bed, and to speedy, happy slumber, 

15 


i6 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


at the little hotel. And next morning, over real 
Scots porridge, with cream in a silver cream-jug, 
and fresh herrings, with coffee in a silver pot, 
marmalade, he sat content, at peace, for the time 
being, with all men. 


IV 


GOOD deal of Bliss Henry’s success — for he 



had been successful for a beginner, despite 


^ the sums I have mentioned — authorship 
being as much for glory as for wealth — had been 
because of his charm.” Every reviewer spoke of 
his charm. He would never have written a chapter 
like this one I’m going to write, lest somebody 
might have thought it vulgar. But it is not really 
vulgar — as you shall see when you have read it ; 
and, besides, it is the only one of its kind in the 
book — the only one that, if you skipped it, instead 
of reading it, you fancy was not beautiful. 

But it is beautiful. Just see ! 

‘‘ You have rooms to let ? ” suggested Bliss Henry, 
standing on the first step of the fiight of five that 
led up to one of the quaint old houses at the top 
of High Street. 

“ Come in, sir,” said the lady with the dazed 
eyes who had opened in response to his ring. 
“ Step this way,” and she ushered him into the 
front room, with no apparent scrutiny en route. 

But just as she curtsied, preparatory to leaving 
him, a light woke in the centre of her hazed eyes, 
B 17 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


shot over him — and he felt that he had been 
measured. He wondered what her status in the 
house might be. 

‘‘ I shall tell Mrs.,” she said, and departed 
silently ; the door, silently, almost closed after her. 

There was no sound of her departing in the hall ; 
but, then, she made no sound at all. He judged 
she was gone to tell Mrs.” — and then the door 
uncannily closed with a tiny click. 

It was almost a relief when it opened again 
with a more exuberant movement and a beaming, 
buxom lady entered — a short, baggy woman who 
slopped a bit as she walked to him. She gave 
him a fling up of her head and almost a laugh in 
her voice as she said : ‘‘ How do you do ? You 
want rooms ? ” 

He agreed with a bow. 

‘‘ Well — this — this is let and the back is let. 
The flight above is occupied. But if you don’t 
object to the top, ceiling’s a little low — but, 
then, you are nearer the fresh air — up aloft — ^you 
know ” she laughed. 

No harm in that,” he said. ‘‘ And I always 
have open windows.” 

They moved into the hall as they spoke. 

Then up we go ? ” she asked, and laid one 
plump hand on the balustrade and gathered her 
skirt with the other. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


19 


Yes,” said Henry, and nodded, thinking that 
she gathered her skirt as if she had no refinement, 
no distinction of touch, plucking her dress to walk 
upstairs just as she might have plucked a cloth 
to scrub it on a washing board. He was afraid 
she would be antipathetic to the turning of the 
exquisite phrases in his new book. 

She rolled her eye on him and then toiled up 
stairs with a mixture of panting and laughter, 
showed him the top rooms with an odd mixture 
of motherliness and coquetry — a little white bed- 
room, to the back, looking out over chimneys of 
a back street to the rolling moors ; a barish sitting- 
room with an ‘‘ enlarged photograph ” or two on 
the walls, to the front. 

‘‘ I shall have my things sent round from the 
hotel,” he said. 

What hotel ? ” she asked. 

‘‘ ‘ The Gamekeeper,’ ” he said ; and she rolled 
her eye on him. He gave up trying to make out 
what she thought of ‘‘ The Gamekeeper.” Her eye 
seemed to do nothing but roll. Perhaps she was 
not thinking what manner of man it was who chose 

The Gamekeeper ” ; perhaps she was only think- 
ing of her rolling eye. 

‘‘ I have some other things to follow from town,” 
he said. “ When I get settled down Pll write my 
address and have them forwarded.” 


20 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


So there he decided to settle ; but he had 
difficulty at first, because of the dilatoriness of 
those responsible in London for the forwarding 
of the rest of his belongings. This was, neverthe- 
less, not a drawback, after all. 

Gradually, as day succeeded day, he began to 
hear, not to discover, for he was not an inquisitive 
person, who were the other occupants of the house. 
A retired military officer (Solway is an elite refuge 
for retired officers) had the whole flat below him ; 
below that (in the room into which he had been 
ushered when first adventuring into the house), 
when at home, sat, staring at the wall-paper and 
twiddling his thumbs, the clerk of the gasworks. 

The buxom landlady appeared not again for 
a week after he took up quarters. He was attended 
on by the very quiet person he had first seen, a 
relative whom he liked better than the landlady. 
She dressed in bombazine, and had the air, he 
thought, of one who had lived and loved and lost ; 
and then again, at another time, when he was less 
“ romantic,” he wondered if, perhaps, she drank, 
if there, perchance, was the explanation for her 
eye and her absent manner. Anyhow, he liked 
her. 

One day she said gently, ‘‘ Colonel very ill, sir.” 

‘‘ I beg your pardon ? ” he said. 

“ Colonel very ill,” she repeated and, both 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


21 


her hands at her side in their wonted pendent 
stillness, she pointed a lean finger to her toes. 

‘‘ Ah,’’ he said, ‘‘ the colonel in the flat below ? ” 
‘‘ Yes, sir ; very ill. Very querulous, sir, when 
he’s ill. Gentleman here before you used to shuffle 
his feet, and it put the colonel about when he 
was ill.” 

Very unfortunate. Is he ill often ? ” 

“ Well, he’s a lonely man, sir,” she said. “ But 
I’m interfering with you,” and she glided out. 

“ If the old buck is ill,” thought Henry, ‘‘ I’ll 
go quiet ” ; so he took off his slippers, lest they 
should creak, and moved in his stocking soles, 
looking furtively out of the low casement down 
the High Street, hands in pockets, bent, away up 
there in the low-ceilinged ‘‘ top,” wondering when 
his books would arrive, and noting how droll it was 
to see people from above like this — to see chiefly 
the tops of their hats and their feet protruding 
below. 

But day succeeded day and the books did not 
arrive ; so Bliss Henry was able to be idle without 
shame. He went out much, up hill and forth on 
to the moor a great deal, becoming acquainted 
with the roads that wandered there. Yet till 
his books came he did not care to go far afield. 
Perhaps after they came, after he got them un- 
packed and all arranged, and his blotter and paper 


22 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


and pens laid out, he would suddenly think himself 
oh, such an idiot to have cooped himself up in this 
old-world house (in stocking soles, for the sake of 
a sick colonel ” below), peering down the sunlit 
main street at sound of every cart passing, and 
would then, having everything round him, say : 
“ Now — we’re settled. Now let us go forth and 
hear the larks in the fields and the peeweeps on 
the high moors ! ” 

There was something — well, what a serial story- 
writer might call ‘‘ sinister ” about that house. 
There was a curious silence about that house. 
It seemed a discreet, polite silence, a silence of 
menials cursing under their breaths. One felt 
it in the subdued hall, and on the quiet stairs, 
and at the door of the colonel’s room. 

Beyond that, on Henry’s flight, was a kind of 
airy quietness, a kind of white or crystal quiet- 
ness due to a little half-curtained window that 
showed the sky and the crest of the hills. 

But sure enough the day came, or the late 
evening, when the silence was broken, and one 
knew it an unreal silence, a waiting silence, a 
kind of silence of people from below stairs. 

Of the breaking of the silence I shall tell later ; 
but, first, of the extreme silence : — 

Dinner was always promptly served at seven, 
to Henry, in the hushed front room with the out- 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


23 


jutting window-seat which he liked. At seven- 
fifteen the colonel dined. At seven-thirty the 
gas person on the first floor ate — when he was not, 
that is, out at the ‘‘ Royal ” bar drinking. 

But on this historic night of silence seven came 
and no dinner — only silence. 

Seven-fifteen came — only silence, with the soft 
feet of the staid relative padding through it — 
but she did not come so far as the ‘‘ top.” The 
minutes chased the quiet minutes, the quarters ” 
followed each other, and several times the soft 
sound of her slippers whispered on the stairs as 
though she was now coming higher — then ceased. 
It was almost uncanny. 

Then Henry heard a bell ring wildly away in the 
bowels of the house. 

“ Ah,” he thought, the colonel dines after 
me, and he has lost patience first. Perhaps they’ll 
respect him more.” 

Then came the soft pad on the stairs again — 
and ceased. 

Henry, for a fact, had no bell ; he went out 
and downstairs a little way, and called ; but no 
answer, not a sound. He went down farther, 
beyond the colonel’s door, and saw the light 
bubbling in the hall chandelier and its reflection 
quaking in the varnished wall and on the dead 
knobs and protuberances of the hat-rack. 


24 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


Then he went up again and, passing the colonel’s 
door, heard a sound as of a quiet rumpus there, 
heavy snorting, struggling — and then a bell pealed 
frantically in the basement. 

It did not sound to Henry as if there were no 
one in. You know the sound of a bell in an un- 
tenanted house ; I don’t mean a vacant, unfurnished 
house, but in a house that has no one in it. No — he 
felt that someone stood with a pallid face and 
fingers locked, looking at that bell swaying, wagging, 
leaping. 

The clatter of it died down and Henry passed on 
upstairs ; but, ere he gained his door, the bell 
again leapt, and rang again — then tinkled slower, 
slower, the ringer having a rest ; but it stopped 
not for long, the sound leapt to life yet again — 
then thinned off. 

Henry sat down — and laughed. He had pic- 
tured the hot, red colonel swearing over the bell 
handle. 

Then on the flat below he heard : “ No, sir, 
she is not in ; no one is in.” 

At that a very high, mellifluous voice, a voice 
he liked, said, quite evenly and calmly, without 
any excited rise : Well, it is damned nearly nine 

o’clock, and I should like to know when the 

I am going to get my dinner.” 

There was a murmur of an answer. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


25 


Then the colonel’s voice, again absolutely even : 

‘‘ Yes ; well, if I had been told early that I 

could not get my dinner I should have gone 

out to an hotel ” ; and then in a very sweet, 
absolutely charming, deep, soft voice : I sup- 

pose you understand that an episode of this kind 
is damnably annoying ? ” 

Bliss Henry heard the “ Yes, sir,” spoken in a 
voice he might almost have called affectionate. 

But he did not attempt to get in touch with the 
relative. 

Something was wrong evidently ; so he went 
out, rather mystified, for something to eat at an 
hotel, seeing no one as he went down ; and when 
he returned the house was just as he had left 
it. He entered with his latch-key and found the 
gas gleaming in the varnish in its wonted way — 
and silence ! He went upstairs and found a cold 
supper — a glass of milk with a soda syphon near 
by, a salad, cut bread and butter, and cold chicken. 
And never another sound that night. 

The relative said nothing in the morning. 
His hot water came as usual ; his breakfast ; and 
the relative curtsied just as usual, gave him one 
look, departed. He asked no questions. He said 
nothing — asked no explanation, and none was 
offered. But he noticed that in about two days’ 
time the relative wore a relieved look ; and then 


26 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 

he became conscious that she had worn a look 
of suspense during these two days. He did not 
make her think she had too early thought need 
for suspense was over — asked no questions. The 
affair of the extreme silence was forgotten. 

And then came the other thing. 

The lonely relative continued to attend to 
Henry so quietly that he wondered sometimes if 
she went in stocking soles ; and at the end of 
each week ‘‘ Mrs.” herself came up to see him, 
fondling his linen, tapped, entered, gave him her 
friendly, buxom, stoutly coquettish glance and 
“ How do you like Solway ? ” made some kind 
of vague conversation, laid down the clothes, and 
said : 

All aired — I see to that myself. I like to 
take care of everybody. Fve a weak chest — just 
the chest — not the lungs — ^you know what I mean 
— a sensitive chest — I believe in airing clothes. 
My last husband — bless him ! — he used to notice 
my bosoms — so sensitive, you know — I often wish 
in cold weather I had a stronger skin ; I wish I 
had a skin as hard as — as hard as — that fender — or ” 
— for this was one of the, as it were, standing 
pieces ” for every visit, only varied according 
to what met her eye that seemed vastly more 
rugged than her epidermis — ‘‘ as stiff and strong 
as the crust of that loaf.” So at least it was once. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


27 


and Henry remembered the phrase ; it recurred 
horribly to mind when he was eating the loaf in 
question, and he felt then something like a rather 
sick cannibal. 

Ah ! Would that he had on his walls his proof 
of Helleu’s dry-point of Lady Looking at the 
W atteaus at the Louvre — the delicacy of its treat- 
ment would have helped him then — but it was 
in a box somewhere between Carter Paterson’s 
dispatching office and the Solway station. He 
could only remember it. Would that the print 
of Whistler’s Fur Jacket were here. Would that 
he had Wharton’s Sappho, if only to handle and 
feel the beauty of the book ; or Vernon Lee’s 
Hortus Vitce, This preposterous, baggy landlady 
made him wish to go and bawl on the housetops 
that she was not a woman at all, but a kind of 
erect cow. Why should she be so stolid with it 
all, so self-complacent ? 

It relieved him on his next walk on the moor, 
when, seeing the far blue distance, there came to 
his head : 

“ His dreams are far among the silent hills ; 

His vague voice calls him from the darkened plain 
With winds at night ; strange recognition thrills 
His lonely heart with piercing love and pain ; 

He knows his sweet mirth in the mountain rills, 

His weary tears that touch him with the rain.” 


28 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


It relieved him to remember that a woman had 
written that. He went back feeling life stately 
and clean and exquisite, joyous and sane, and 
beautiful as an old framed miniature. 

Henry appeared interested, as a rule, in his 
landlady’s “ bosoms ” — appearing so for civility’s 
sake, not considering that by being civil, which 
is good, one may sometimes fail to be something 
else, which is better ; there being civility and 
civility, and to be courteous to some people is 
rather to be a hypocrite than a saint. But Bliss 
Henry did not think of that then. 

There he stood bowing and listening when 
rather would he have said, Oh, damn your 
bosoms, madam.” 

Once she brought him (because of his sympathetic 
interest) a hideous old engraving, garishly framed, 
an engraving of a picture of a lady who seemed to 
Henry to be deformed both as to torso and fore- 
head, a deformed lady, in short, in undress uniform, 
brought it to this admirer of Helleu’s Lady Looking 
at the Watteaus ! 

“ He gave me that because he said it was so 
beautiful. It reminded him,” she said, with a 
little coquettish giggle, “ of my .... 

She sighed and simpered and went on again : 

“ A delightful man he was — not like ” and her 

finger pointed down through the fioor, plumply 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


29 


pointed clearly away down below the old colonel 
and the gasworks person. Henry understood its 
significance. He had not seen “ Mr.” her second” ; 
but he pictured him then as an ogre in shirt-sleeves 
with a clay pipe in his mouth, something like that 
terror that looked in at the window in Poe’s Rue 
Morgue story, pictured him sitting away down there 
hideously, below the street level, beside a pint of 
ale. 

Once Henry simply lay back and roared. It 
had come into his head that she was not a woman 
at all, but a perambulating Phallic sign ! 

What’s taken you ? ” she said. 

He roared again. 

I think she thought he was slightly crazy, for 
she laughed a little in sympathy, and then backed 
out and closed the door. Yet in course of time 
he got quite to like the lady. He began to see 
the funny side ; his books had not yet arrived, 
and, when all was said and done, the woman was 
interesting. 

After she had gone one day he lay back and 
remarked to himself : “ Character ? Why, she’s 
not a character at all ! She’s a blessed symbol,” 
and he chortled. 

She returned suddenly. At her quick tap he 
sobered his countenance. 

‘‘ Come in ! ” he said. 


30 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


“ ^he Daily Mailf she said. ‘‘ I forgot that was 
what I came up with. I get so interested talking.” 

‘‘ Thanks,” he said, and began to turn it over, 
marked the pictures — a photograph of the under- 
side of an electric car with a cross marked on it — 
“ The cross shows the part that hit the little boy.” 
Another : ‘‘ Lily Lily in her thrill costume that 
has been censored.” 

The landlady departed. Then there caught his 
eye — it had been put in evidently to fill up a 
space that no “ news,” or photograph, or advertise- 
ment of pills would fit — the four lines : 

“ When you are old and gray and full of sleep, 

And nodding by the fire, take down this book. 

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look 
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.” 

Then came that night of sound in the house of 
silence. 

Dinner had just been served, and Henry noticed 
that the relative seemed distraught. He thought 
she was nervous — and perhaps had been taking 
some stimulant to help her. 

Suddenly far in the bowels of the earth was 
a cry ; then another cry — up a little ; then higher 
still. The crying out came higher and higher, 
till it reached the hall. 

And this was the house in which the author 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 31 

of The Jewelled Snu^-hox and The Japanese Fan 
was to write his new, charming romance, a romance 
of which the reviewers would say, heading their 
special reviews very probably with such phrases 
as “ Dolce far Niente ” or A Bowl of Roses ’’ : 
‘‘ An exquisite romance told with his wonted 
charm, a charm that defies analysis. There are 
Italian wines with the sunlight in them, not great 
of body, but no ordinary wines. There are also 
the idyllic romances of Bliss Henry, charming, 
dainty, elegiac. They are of modern life of men 
and women of to-day, but their women have the 
charm one feels in thinking of the lost ladies of 
old years, of their lavender and roses. He makes 
the present as charming as the past, as charming and 
unreal and delightful.” 

The outcrying below mounted higher, and 
now the words were audible. It was the voice 
of the lady that Bliss Henry, sitting there waiting 
for his books, heard first : 

You would hit me, I suppose, would you ? ” 

Then a gruff voice said : 

“ I don’t suggest hitting you.” 

“ You had better not ! ” 

Henry heard that cry of the buxom lady, and 
for a moment thought of flying to succour her — 
the female in distress ; but the man’s voice was 
very calm, and it is perhaps wrong — effeminate — 


32 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


to be guided at all by such “ somehows ” — but 
somehow the man’s voice seemed as if he were in 
the right ! 

You’re only trying to tantalise me,” Henry 
heard him exclaim. ‘‘ I never raised a hand 

to you in my life. I’m only ” the man 

began. 

‘‘ You raised a hand ! Oh, you wretch ! ” 
cried the woman. 

“ Gently, gently. I’m only speaking for your 
good.” 

‘‘ Ah ! The one before you, he was kindness and 

goodness ” cried the woman ; the rest was 

lost; and then Henry heard a strangling cry of 
“ bosoms.” 

‘‘For my good ! Why, you ” 

“ You’re hysterical — that’s the kindest word 
I can use,” said the man. 

“ T ou use a kind word ! Y ou use a kind word ! ” 

After that the tumult descended step by step. 
Then : 

“ Ah ! You’re running away down when I 
come up where men can hear how you treat me 
and come to my aid.” 

There was no answer audible from the man ; 
but the lady’s voice came again, from farther 
off : 

“ Yes, I’m coming down — of course I’m coming 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


33 


down. Do you think Pm afraid of your threats — 
with men in the house ? ” 

Then lower still : 

Men, I say, in the house. My house ! Not 
your house ! I pay the rent ! I pay everything ! 

You ” the voice went lower, are a ” 

(Henry lost it), “ yes, that’s what you are ! Ah ” 

There was a yell. 

Henry could stand no more. This place was 
of no use to him. He was not writing serials 

for the . It caught him on the raw — 

not in his literary part. It was of no use to him, 
and he knew so little of this world into which 
he had been plunged, that, though for the sake 
of humanity he felt he should do something, 
he did not know what to do. He was as well- 
meaning and exquisite and useless as one of his 
own beloved heroes. He had thought that the 
lady was to blame ; but at that cry he feared 
that her ‘‘ second ” must have lost his calm control 
and stabbed her. She emitted such a terrible yell. 
He leapt to his feet, ran to the door and half- 
way down his own flight ; and then he bethought 
him that when people are killed they can’t yell 
like that. 

He went slowly back again, and then silence 
fell. 

Next day, when he came home from a visit 


34 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


to the station to enquire if his boxes had yet 
arrived, putting his key in the lock, and swinging 
open the door, as it were, all in one glad gesture — 
for the boxes had arrived and would be delivered 
next day — he beheld my lady and a gentle- 
man standing embracing each other in the 
hall! 

The atmosphere in that hall-way was not helpful 
for Bliss Henry. It was an atmosphere that an 
alert, self-preservative instinct made him desire 
to dodge, even before he had time to argue about 
the instinct in his mind, in his fashion of a trans- 
cendentalist, and discover the source of his aversion : 
a quick hunger gnawed him for a high and holy 
place, a high, free place of contemplative air, 
above the elbowings and jostlings of passions and 
materialism. 

The gust of wind from the door told the lascivious 
embracers of the presence of the author, and 
they untwined. The man looked half sheepish, 
half oxish. The lady looked — well, just fat and 
nothing else. Then she emitted a thick, foolish 
laugh, and ogled Bliss Henry and said, ‘‘Good 
evening.” 

“ Good evening,” he said politely. 

Under cover of his wife’s good evening the 
man scuttled into a shadow in the rear of the hall. 
She called him, and he reappeared. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


35 


“ My husband,” she said. ‘‘ I don’t think 
you’ve met him before. Very handy man 
he is.” 

‘‘ How do you do ? ” said Henry, gave him 
a quick look, bowed into space, and moved on up- 
stairs, fixing his eyes on the steps. 

But hardly had he settled in his room, in the 
chair by the open window, when the handy man 
entered on a peremptory, military tap, to enquire 
‘‘ if there was anything I could do for you, sir, 
any boots to repair, any little odd job — just come 
to me, sir — I’m a handy man — only too pleased,” 
and as Henry thanked him civilly the handy man 
explained that he had been a soldier, and in quick, 
jerky stages, before Henry was well aware, had 
begun a story of the Indian Mutiny which only 
a discourteous man could possibly have stemmed 
after the first three sentences. 

As Henry said, when the story seemed really 
finished, to judge by the soldier’s staring, expectant 
eyes, That’s very interesting,” he told it 
again. 

It was a story, Henry gathered on the second 
telling, of how the handy man’s brains had been 
complimented by the colonel. 

“ He evidently — er — saw you were a clever man,” 
Henry suggested, thinking if he said something the 
old soldier would say “ Thank you ” and go. 


36 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


So the handy man wiped the sweat from his 
brow with a large red handkerchief and told his 
tale again. 

It took a long time ; and then, at last, the 
lady came up, tapped, and entered on the middle 
of the story — at least it sounded like the 
middle. 

“ You’re getting enough of my old man now, 
I should think,” said ‘‘ Mrs.” “ Come away, my 
pet.” 

The old worthy servant of his country and 
maintainer of empire waved his red handkerchief. 

“ I’ve just been telling him about the colonel 
of ours and the dispatch box,” explained the pet. 
“ Oh ! ” 

Thereupon the pet began to tell the tale again 
to both, Henry sitting broken, staring ; ‘‘ Mrs.” 
standing looking at her handy man fondly. Then 
she got a little tired and sat down. It was late 
afternoon. Henry cleared his throat and mopped 
his brow. 

“ By the way,” he said, ‘‘ I shall be leaving 
you.” 

The husband rose abruptly, dropped his wet 
handkerchief, picked it up, and stared at his 
wife. 

‘‘ Mrs.” rose heavily, as heavily as she had sat 
down. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


37 


‘‘ Anything wrong ? ” they both asked simul- 
taneously, looking to each other and then at 
Henry. 

‘‘ Oh, no,” said Henry. ‘‘ Pm going back to 
the hotel. I’m — well, I’m going back to-night — 
I — eh — ^well — ^you see, one gets some company 
there ” 

‘‘ I told you,” said “ Mrs.,” turning to the 
colonel’s indispensable worthy, ‘‘ that the gentle- 
man was bound to be lonely, and you should 
come up and see if you couldn’t entertain him 
of an evening with your tales about the 
Mutiny.” 

Her husband slunk from the room and shuffled 
downstairs. 

“ I mean — eh ” stammered Henry, “ when 

I said — eh — one gets company there — I meant 
one can get quiet there.” 

Mrs.” stared at him and backed oddly to the 
door. 

“ I shall pay you a week in lieu of notice, and go 
at once, if you will be so good as to send up a note 
of my bill.” 

She backed out, staring at the lunatic ; and 
half an hour later he departed, leaving his valise 
and suit-case in the hall to be called for by the 
hotel porter. 

The silent relative held the door open. ‘‘ Mrs.” 


38 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


stood back a little beyond the stairs. The short- 
winded, retired sergeant’s head showed at top 
of the shadowy steps that led down to the 
catacombs. 

Henry went down the five steps into the street 
with a feeling of having escaped from a madhouse, 
and, turning, gave one furtive look at the silent 
relative in bombazine, standing expressionless at 
the door, holding it wide open till he should have 
gained the street. It was there that he turned and 
gave the farewell nod. The lay figure curtsied. 
He marched away. 

The door softly shut. 


V 


I T was good to be installed^ as he was three 
days later. 

He had gone from that, to him, distressful 
house, to the hotel, purchasing on the way a 
bottle of Condy’s Fluid and a cake of carbolic 
soap, ordered a hot bath, sent the boots ” to 
the station to inform the station-master that 
a new address would be supplied in a day or two 
for the delivery of the crates of books, they to be 
stored meantime. After his bath he sent the 
returned “ boots ” out into Solway to beat up the 
booksellers, with a slip of paper on which he had 
written “ Matthew Arnold’s Poems.” An hour later 
the “ boots ” returned a little quiet. 

I’ve been to every bookshop in Solway,” 
he said, standing twisting his cap and beaming 
his naive smile, and I can’t get it.” He shook 
his head and grinned and looked apologetic. It 
was droll enough to him that a gentleman should 
want anything to read except a halfpenny paper, 
but he felt a certain respect for a gentleman 
who wanted an unprocurable book. “ There isn’t 
one' in Solway. Beg pardon, sir — ^you’re sure it’s 
Matthew was the Christian name ? ” 


39 


40 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


Eh ? Certainly — not Edwin.” 

‘‘Ah! That’s all right, sir.” He had a new 
respect for this gentleman — evidently the gentle- 
man knew his subject. He wondered if the gentle- 
man was as acute on the subject of racing ; if 
the “gent” knew about horses like this, perhaps 
later, when they knew each other better, one 
might get the tip to spot a winner. “ One shop 
they had a book by someone name of Edwin — 
as you say, sir — and I thought it might do as well.” 

“ No ; it would not have done as well,” said 
Bliss Henry. “ Thanks all the same.” 

“ Then you wouldn’t have it, even being un- 
able to get this here Matthew’s ? Gent in the 
shop says they’re relatives, sir.” 

“ The relationship is, I fear, purely accidental, 
then,” Henry said solemnly, but the corners of 
mouth and eyes smiled. 

“ It wouldn’t serve like at a pinch ? Very 
happy, sir, to go again,” said the boots, and looked 
with pleasure on the “ gent’s ” puckering smile. 

“ Thank you, boots, you’re a good boy — but 
to have sought for Matthew and not found him 
is better than having found Edwin. Good night.” 

“ Good night, sir, and thank you.” 

Three days later he had new “ rooms,” his 
books sent thither, and the unpacking operation 
was over. The last wisp of packing-straw out of 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


41 


the seven cases of books and framed things had 
been removed. The sitting-room of his new 
abode was swept and garnished ; and the elderly 
person who was to be honoured by his occupancy 
had departed. 

He stood in his room turning slowly about, 
like a chimney-top in a day of faint wind, surveying 
his walls : looking on the books on the mantelpiece ; 
books in the little toy-like hanging bookcase ; 
books in the little toy-like revolving one (not his, 
but his landlady’s, won in a raffle) ; and books 
along the back of the sideboard. 

He had his prints up now : Helleu’s Cigarette^ 
No, /, and Lady Looking at the Watteaus at the 
Louvre^ which he was going to discard, or, rather, 
just move away from, for a reason which will 
be stated ; a Whistler that was going to come 
nearer to him — of a shop with a hanging tapestry 
in the window, a child on the three steps leading 
up to its door, a poetic mystery in its glimpsed 
recesses, sunlight — and the butterfly on its wall ; 
a scaffolded building by Muirhead Bone ; two 
photographs. I am sorry to thrust in on this 
selection from his decorations with the flnancial 
details — but his removal thither, the processes 
between leaving London and settling here in the 
quiet place where he was to work better by pre- 
tending to himself that he was on holiday, had 


42 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


left him with fjo out of the £ioo. Still — even 
that can serve a dreamer. 

At any rate,” thought he, “ I am now anchored 
again. I am here — incontestably here. I did not 
feel here at all in that queer house — felt here 
at the hotel a little bit — but now — now I am 
here.” 

He walked to the window for another look 
at the view which he hoped would get on well 
with him ; yes, he found it friendly, it being 
an open view of fields with a twist of far-off river 
showing steel among the purple and green, and 
blue hills beyond. So far satisfied, he went forth 
to select a stationer’s shop for the purchase of 
the utensils of his trade. Three blank weeks he 
had been in Solway ; even that had not been 
done, he desiring only, so far, to gain a sense 
of having his castle round him. Lacking that 
sense, it were in vain to lay in pen and paper. 
He could only tramp each day on the moors above 
the town and ask each day on every separate return : 
‘‘ My boxes come yet ? ” not but what I believe 
that even the delay of the books was not an un- 
mixed evil. To tramp the moor roads was really 
an eternal matter. And later, when he found 
Solway not at all interested in Eternity, he would 
know where to go for the peace that Solway could 
not give. For of course you knew, knowing that 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


43 


peace is an affair not of a place but of the heart, 
knew from the very beginning that this idea of 
going to Solway for peace was all fudge. 

Every day found him tramping on the high 
moor that stretches, more or less, from a little south 
of Glasgow to a little north of Leeds — a happy 
thought that gives a sense of space to him who 
considers it, tramping in the heather. At first, 
at the beginning of each walk, in the blazing 
sun, he went often with puckered eyes downcast 
to the road ; so he saw its beauty, the road itself a 
whity-grey, and the Macadamised rock here 
and there, where it had been lately repaired, 
glinting blue. Then would come a part where one 
could walk on the grass by the roadside, the bushes 
being thinned away, and he would go stepping 
there as on velvet. On either hand the moors 
spread with their rolls and hollows, and now and 
then a moor bird rose fluttering a little way, 
lazily, through the effulgent summer. 

A sip at a wayside spring, that had to be come 
at over a slightly squelchy, boggy space of moss and 
drenched grass, was a sip to be remembered through 
life. A rest by the stream’s side, near a beloved 
linn, while legs tingled with a pleasurable and 
healthful exhaustion— oh, these rests ! They were 
different from the rests in his top-back in Chelsea 
after journeys home through the fiery streets of 


44 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


midsummer London. There even the rests were 
like pain. Here even the tirednesses were like 
pleasure. 

Now he must get down to work. Now he must 
go forth and buy pen, ink, and paper. And he 
went out into a new Solway now, that afternoon. 

What I want to know is : Was it his factitious 
Solway, or the actual Solway, that he went into 
now ; was he finding the real Solway or the real 
self ? 


VI 


M rs. STURGE, the landlady, was clearing 
away the breakfast dishes and chattering. 
The clamour of the church bells broke 
out, ricochetting through the little town, and, as she 
came and went, that lady with the eyes of slumber- 
ing furies and superstitions, looked through the 
window, paused with full hands. Bliss Henry, 
glancing up at her, saw her scrutinising the church- 
goers. 

“ There’s our ex-mayor,” she said. “ Our ex- 
mayor,” she repeated. 

He rose for courtesy (I fancy that before we 
get through with him we shall find that Bliss 
Henry had to devise some way of protecting 
his courtesy ; as Emerson says, even love has to 
protect itself !), and as he rose he suggested to 
himself that an author should know all things, 
and thus disabuse idiots of the idea that an author 
is a mere literary man,” whatever that may 
mean. He should even know about ex-mayors. 

So he rose and saw the ex-mayor, had him 
pointed out, perceived him, took note of him. 

‘‘ Fond of dogs, I should think,” he murmured, 
45 


46 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


and of old port ; a trifle arrogant ; sometimes 
gets drunk.” 

Oh ! You’ve heard about him ? ” suggested 
Mrs. Sturge, and looked round, admiring her 
new lodger’s swiftness in culling local gossip, 
and expectant of its rehearsal. 

‘‘ Not I,” said Henry, shaking his head, and 
his gaze suddenly leaving the mayor to follow 
with quick joy the recurring — recurring — again 
quick recurring flight of a martin round the eaves. 

I’m only guessing.” 

Mrs. Sturge admired what she conceived to 
be the discretion of her lodger, and said : That’s 
right, Mr. Henry ; I think we should speak ill 
of no one — though I could tell you some queer 
stories of this town, if it’s stories you want.’ I 
take you, begging your pardon, I’m an honest 
woman, and don’t hold by hypocrisy . . .” but 
Henry was thinking about the martin scudding 
round the eaves, and he was singing, with the 
unheard melody, to himself, Gautier’s — 


“ Des ailes ! des ailes ! des ailes ! 
Comme dans le chant de Ruckert, 
Pour voler la-bas avec dies 
Au soleil d’or, au printemps vert ! ” 


His landlady’s voice was going on : “ . . . and 
seeing your pens and papers lying about, I took 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


47 


you for a writer of some kind, and when I mentioned 
your name — not talking about you, but just by 
accident, as it were — to somebody — I forget who 
— they said they believed you were a friction 
author. They had seen the name somewhere, 
and I thought of the pens and paper — not that 
I said any more about my suspicions. I wouldn’t 
discuss my gentlemen.” She drew up with her 
grand air. “ Ah ! That’s Mrs. Montague, and 
her daughter. Miss Montague.” Bliss Henry 
looked and saw them. He said nothing. But he 
wondered if what he thought then was exact as 
what he thought of the ex-mayor seemed to have 
been. 

‘‘ They are the wealthiest people in the town,” 
said Mrs. Sturge. “ There’s a young lady now to 
suit you — a fine lady-like young lady,” and she gave 
him a succulent old sticky smile with a kind of edge 
on it. 

“ Might I have a little more coal, Mrs. Sturge I ” 
Henry suggested. 

“ Yes, Mr. Henry ; I’ll tell May,” and Mrs. 
Sturge departed with a certain precipitancy, and 
Henry was aware that though there was pre- 
cipitancy she had a spine, though that had no more 
effect on him than to cause a plaintive smile to drift 
over his face. The last impression she left was, 
distinctly, that she had stiffened. Henry stretched 


48 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


and sighed — and relaxed, filled his pipe slowly and 
blew a column of smoke. He looked at the blue 
whorls drifting leisurely and gracefully upward and 
enjoyed them. And, of course, again he had his 
bit of appropriate literature — from a pipe rondeau 
by Henley : 

our perfumed reverie, 

A mild-eyed and mysterious ecstasy, 

In purple whorls and delicate spires ascending 
Like hope materialised, inquiringly 
Towards the unknown Infinite is wending.*^ 

If Bliss Henry had had to hunt for other men’s 
expressions of his passing thoughts and finer emo- 
tions he would have been more aged and smelling of 
the scholar’s lamp than he was. But his “ apt 
quotations ” always came with a leap of spontaneity 
like a boy’s laugh. The world without might some- 
times jar him, but take his own life all round and I 
think he had achieved, or made for himself, a world 
not so pitiable — a happy world of glad, airy actu- 
alities. 


VII 


H enry wandered round the shelves in the 
shop of the bookseller and stationer in 
Solway. I say the,” though there were 
others, because this one had on sale no small 
crockery with the town’s crest on it. 

The books were such as one might expect in 
Solway, even though there was no small coat-of- 
arms crockery. In glass cases were morocco-bound 
and padded Hoods, Tennysons, Elizabeth Barrett 
Brownings. In long rows were boys’ books and 
girls’ books, with much gilt and many coloured 
plates. There were guide books on tables, picture 
postcards in revolving show-cases. But in a corner 
Henry paused, a row of books on a shelf there 
detaining him, for the books were of the kind 
known as belles-lettres. At sight of them such a 
joy came into his heart that, if he had been 
introspective at the moment, he might have 
suspected, feeling then joyful, that he had perhaps 
been sad before — or perhaps that he had just been 
beginning to be lonely in Solway and had not ad- 
mitted it to himself. He was glad to see these books 
as might a Martian, wandering exiled on this earth, 
D 49 


50 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


be glad to find here a chunk of stone not a bit like 
the surrounding stone, but one he recognised, with- 
out any disrespect toward the stones on this planet, 
as from his. 

Pardon me,” said the bookseller, these books 
are ordered books — they are not for sale.” 

Oh,” said Henry, and bowed to them as he 
might have bowed an apology for having by acci- 
dent looked, in passing, into a stranger’s study, of 
which the blinds were not drawn. ‘‘ Well,” he 
turned and looked in the bookseller’s eyes and 
knew he could say it quite straightforwardly, 
“ they are the only books I can see that I wish to 
handle.” 

“ I am afraid you will find Solway rather lonely 
for you then,” said the bookseller, and scrutinised 
him with puckering eyes as an artist views a model. 

I know only one — or two — customers for such 
books.” 

Henry continued his perambulations along the 
rows. He was too desirous to be courteous, after 
the late rudeness of staring at someone else’s 
shrine, to ask who the customers might be — 
even though he would have liked to know, being 
already, though he did not know it, solitary in 
Solway. 

The bookseller’s eyes were on him still, following 
him, scrutinizing, intent. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


51 


‘‘ But even in that row you don’t care for them 
all ? ” he suggested. 

Henry turned and looked, not at the books, but 
looked his man again in the eyes. 

‘‘ I find myself,” he said slowly, “ almost ap- 
pearing arrogant in what I am about to say — I 
was about to say : ^ One cannot have all well. 
This, at least, is getting there. There are discre- 
pancies ; there are flaws ; but whoever ordered 
these has an eye in the right direction.’ You 
observe how blandly I say, ‘ the right direction,’ as 
though ” 

Why not ? I presume you have thought, pon- 
dered, meditated in your life. Why be more humble 
than those who do not — those who do not ever 
think and yet have very hard and fast codes, oh, 
very hard and fast, and you must conform to them 
or they make you an outcast ? ” 

The two men looked at each other a long while. 
At first Henry had wondered, “ Is he a bit of a 
sycophant, without the outward bearing of one, 
never, for instance, rubbing his hands and bowing 
over them, a clever sycophant ? ” But he decided : 
‘‘ No, he’s not. He’s a Man.” 

‘‘ I say,” said Henry, “ I’m awfully glad to meet 
you.” 

‘‘ Are you to be in Solway long ? ” asked the 
bookseller. 


52 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 

Oh, perhaps six months, perhaps longer.” 

“ Then I shall see you in here sometimes,” said 
the bookseller. 

Yes ; he was a man. 


VIII 


T X ID you notice,” said the bookseller, laying 
I I down his pen and turning from a business- 
^ looking ruled volume on his desk, in which 
he had been writing — not sitting, but bent over the 
desk with the air of saying, ‘‘Just a minute till I 
enter this ” — “ did you notice that our remarks on 
books the other day led us off at once to life ? They 
seemed to be remarks on life as well — quite mixed 
up in it.” He saw ink on his second finger and 
balanced himself on one leg to wipe it on a sock. 

“ Yes ; and you reminded me of an instance, 
brought it all up before me again.” 

“ Oh ! ” The bookseller’s foot came down and 
he stood to attention — and then at ease. 

“ Yes ; a woman I once met and knew for a little 
while. We were thrown together by accident. She 
had travelled and had three languages. But I began 
to find that every conversation that we had drifted 
always somehow to — well, to a sort of feeling that 
I had been led whither I had no desire to go. Her 
eyes generally told me — and the atmosphere ; also a 
kind of alert, victorious air she wore then. Her eyes 
used to dance, brighten, she seemed to become the 
53 


54 ^ Wilderness of Monkeys 

tabernacle of a fierce hilarity. She spoke of Maeter- 
linck once, I remember, and from the vague tapered 
it down to Monna V anna and the essay on Silence — 
and then came to the passage, or sentence of the 
essay on Silence — spoke about the wonderful bit 
about being alone in a room with one, in silence, and 
feeling in that silence. Then she spoke of Anatole 
France — and soon tapered him into Thais — and 
then, again, a bit only, of Thais, 

“ I don’t know France,” said the bookseller ; 
‘‘ but I see what you mean about Maeterlinck.” 

‘‘ She was the same all round. It gave me a 
shock to see her books and find how one could 
have three languages, and a college career, and 
travel, and make one expect something, and then 
give — and evidently acquire, at the end of all — 
thatl^^ 

“ And I suppose you’ve met quite illiterate 
women who, without books, could acquire all she 
had lost ? ” 

‘‘ Not acquire — had it already. The horrific 
thing is to see where it is possible for the mere 
beast to find herbage. It’s terribly misleading. If 
a man tells me he reads Maeterlinck and Anatole 
France, I know he is of those who have a bit in them 
that aspires. That woman — oh, the feel of her ! — I 
always think of her as something slimy that had 
climbed over a bust of Anatole France on my mantel- 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


55 


shelf and left a streak of slime that smelt of hair and 
perspiration on it.” 

‘‘ Never mind. It won’t spoil the bust.” 

But, my God, man, it talks about the bust it 
has been over and may delude ” 

‘‘ It didn’t delude you ? ” asked the bookseller, 
but almost with the tone of one stating a fact a 
little belligerently. 

No ! True ! It gave me a feel of horror and a 
feel of ” 

Of ? ” said Haskell, and brought his lips 

together like a priest’s or an actor’s. 

Henry sighed. 

‘‘ Well, a feeling that one must be careful and 
not be deluded — must not be gulled by a name. 
Ah ! I have it ! ” 

‘‘ Yes ? ” 

‘‘ These things make us stronger. After all, it’s a 
tribute to us when the Devil gives up shoving the 
raw material under our noses, but dresses it up.” 

The bookseller’s eyes were radiant. It was as if 
he had watched a man perfectly solving a puzzle the 
while the man kept on saying, I can’t do this.” 

‘‘ I see where you are travelling,” he said thought- 
fully. Then he sighed. I wonder,” he said, 
staring unseeing at the wall where Ade, Lester 
Arnold, Boothby, Corelli sat blindly in worn covers, 
“ if, till the end of all things, there will be a fight 


56 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


for those who do travel, and pitfalls all the way — 
more cleverly covered as the way goes on.” 

“ Doubtless — but they are only covered more 
cleverly because the traveller is more clever, 
greater. But always he is great enough to see the 
pitfall and pass on.” 

“ We seem to be talking of men and women ? ” 
suggested the bookseller. 

Of all things,” said Henry. 

There was a space of silence ; the bookseller put 
his left hand to his clean jaw and stroked it with 
the palm, looking sidewise ; his unseeing gaze, un- 
seeing so far as circulating library went, was riveted 
meaninglessly on the row where stood, shabbily and 
worn, William Westall, Stanley Weyman, John 
Strange Winter — the juxtaposition of company in 
a circulating library being droll as that at a Lord 
Mayor’s banquet. 

Then,” said the bookseller, ‘‘ as a side issue, let 
me suggest — is woman but the slimy thing on your 
bust always ? Does the symbol serve for those 
who can see through a thing ? Even when she gets 
three languages, and travels, is she just that, the 
slimy thing on the bust, and even her Maeterlinck 
and France talk just to aid her in her crawl, seeing 
the man has them ? ” 

I believe,” said Henry, and his head went up 
oddly and he looked away before him, that there 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


S7 


are women who will accompany man because he is 
travelling, to travel also, with him, because he is 
strong ” 

‘‘ Pardon me,” said the bookseller, there is some- 
one in the shop,” and he departed and left Henry 
alone in the back premises amongst the hotch-potch 
of books bought but not sorted. Henry turned his 
eyes from them and gazed through the window on 
the little court visible to rear, with a bit of old 
Solway opposite, a mullioned window, with the 
gold of some reflected sunlight in it, a white- 
washed wall with a creamy, elusive light in it — a 
kind of light that never was,” he thought, and 
yet, to be seen, of course is ; though that seemed 
the only way to express it, the tangible, for some 
reason, being always called the real, even by poets ; 
seldom even a poet having the courage to say 
“ Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are 
sweeter.” 

When Haskell came back, gaily, he almost startled 
Bliss Henry, the world our author had been in 
during Haskell’s absence having been so real. 

It was the young lady to take the books you 
were looking at,” he said ; but Henry was, despite 
the almost start, still staring at the shaft of sun- 
light that came through the window, at the motes 
dancing on it. There was a great quiet there — just 
a shaft of sunlight. Henry turned back a little on 


58 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


Haskell’s return, standing foursquare as it were, 
staring ; the bookseller standing suddenly still, the 
expectancy with which he had returned fading 
from his face. The talk seemed not interrupted, 
but over. 

Well,” said Henry, I’m afraid time flies. I’ll 
look in again — good day.” He walked out of the 
circulating library ” into the shop and paused, the 
bookseller following a little way, his eyes wide. 
Then Henry turned in the centre of the shop, the 
sunlit street without, the tapping of feet going to 
and fro on it, looked back again, nodded. 

“ Good morning,” he said. 

Good morning,” said the bookseller. 


IX 



ITTLE Colonel Jukes, to whom Henry had a 


letter o£ introduction, was a man that 


^ tickled Henry. He had charge of the town 
records, some city post that entailed dictating 
letters, in the phrasing of which he took great pride, 
but not so much joy as he took in his scrap album — 
a curious medley of cuttings and portraits, chiefly 
relating to persons who had some connection with 
Solway or the district. 

He was a short, broad man, with an air almost 
dapper ; dapper without being dapper — ^which 
Henry found entertaining ; he was dapper by 
personality, not by costume. He had a way of 
standing talking with hands on ribs. Angers back- 
ward, then removing his pince-nez and throwing 
them at his interlocutor ; but, as the pince-nez 
were affixed to a button of his waistcoat by a slender 
chain, they were fairly safe despite this usage, fell 
with a gentle clatter, swung plumb-like by the 
chain, steadied gently, trembling, and then some- 
how, by the way they hung, drew attention to the 
fact that Colonel Jukes had a slight tendency to 
paunch and also stood with his legs well taught- 


59 


6o 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


ened — a fine, fresh, vigorous, clean little figure 
of a well-built man — with a kindly eye, sparkling 
eye. 

He had a witty way of describing the magnates 
of the town, so that Henry might know them. 
Jukes had every opportunity to know them, he 
being secretary to the town, it would appear — 
librarian, curator of the museum, secretary to the 
local art school, and I know not what besides — 
quite secretary to the town, letter-writer for every 
illiterate councillor, tongue in cheek often, putting 
into unfittingly perfect business English their pre- 
posterous and amusing ideas. 

A councillor had once called him a jack-in-office ! 
The way of that was that the councillor had wanted 
to harangue his fellow-citizens for their vote in the 
news-room of the public library. The librarian in- 
formed him, politely enough, that he could not 
speak there ; but he persisted, with a snort at 
Jukes, raising his voice in oratorical falsetto with : 

Hie ! Fellow-electorates, I have pleasure in 

standing before you ” ' 

Pardon me,” said Jukes, “ I must inform you 
that this is against the rules, and must ask you to 
retire.” 

“ I shall report you for insolence to the com- 
mittee,” said the councillor. 

At the moment I must perform the duties that 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 6i 

the committee has appointed me to perform,” said 
Jukes, ‘‘ and request that you retire.” 

I refuse,” said the councillor, drawing up with 
a shuddering movement in his shoulders. 

The bumpkins reading the daily papers scratched 
their heads and opened their mouths. 

“ You are a jack-in-ofhce and I am a councillor. 
You can’t put me out,” said the councillor. “ Jack- 
in-office,” he ended. 

The jack-in-office walked to the door and opened 
it. 

“ Councillor Williams, will you go ! ” 

Councillor Williams, for some reason, went ; and 
then the jack-in-office retired to his sanctum and 
wrote a minute on the matter to his town’s com- 
mittee : ‘‘ Gentlemen, I have to inform you that 
this evening, at eight o’clock, in pursuance of my 
duties as curator of the town’s library,” etc. etc. ; 
and after the next council meeting a written apology 
came to him from the councillor. 

He was just reading it, smiling, when the mayor 
entered and shook hands with him. 

“ Nothing special,” said the mayor, and drew a 
hand down his Vandyke beard ; ‘‘ I was just passing 
and looked in. We had a council meeting last 
night,” his chubby, red face wrinkled in a smile, 
the beard thrust out, and he shook hands again in 
his affable manner, his eyes telling of some great 


62 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


interior hilarity, and away he went without telling 
the joke, just looking back a moment grinning on 
Jukes — Jukes grinning on him. 

Bliss Henry had seen in Jukes’s eye the possi- 
bilities of such a story long ere he heard this par- 
ticular story ; and also he saw the signs of the scrap 
album in the colonel’s fussy little movements. 

Henry came to drop in often at the sanctum of 
this secretary to everything in the town and hear 
him talk. 

“ We have no great demands for any books such 
as you, I suspect, would call books,” said the colonel 
one day. ‘‘ I must tell you a thing that will interest 
you : some time ago two persons asked for the 
complete works of Dickens and pored over them 
for three days. Then they got out Thackeray and 
spent three days over him. This sort of thing con- 
tinued for some time, and then one day the gentle- 
man explained in a friendly way to me that he had 
been taking part in a great anagram competition, 
I believe he called it, and had won one hundred 
pounds. Still, one or two persons in town do have 
what you would call an interest in life, have a thirst 
for knowledge — is that it ? — geology, botany. Ah ! 
there is one such now,” Colonel Jukes peered away 
along through the vista of glass partitions behind 
which lay (according to the statements on their 
varnished doors) newspaper-room, reference-room. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


63 


writing-room, lending-department, and so forth. 

Ah — she has just gone out — an interesting girl — 
Miss Montague.” 

“ Oh ! What kind of woman is she ? ” 

Oh ! — reads. There are one or two literary 
women in town. There’s a Miss Fox, I believe she 
does literary work of some kind. She often comes 
in to look up the old town files — takes an interest 
in her country. I think you would get on with 
her.” 

‘‘ I’ve a sort of introduction to her.” 

Jukes gave a little bow. 

‘‘ She comes in here too. I know her slightly 
from that ; but that’s all. Miss Montague, how- 
ever, you’d like. I’d like to introduce you. She’s 
charming and she’s up-to-date. You’d like her, I 
fancy.” 

‘‘ The sort of woman a man can get along with ? 
Can really talk — has real interest in life — in books — 
eh ? The sort of woman one can be at home 
with ? ” 

Yes.” 

‘‘ I like women like that — to squat on the floor 
with and look over a file of etchings, and rave and 
smoke with over books.” 

‘‘ Smoke with ! Oh, scissors ! ” cried the colonel, 
and put a paper-weight on some missives, flicked 
some dust from them. 


64 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


“ Oh, well, I speak figuratively,” said Henry with 
a little nod, and stared at the paper-weight. 

The colonel put on his pendent glasses again 
and then threw them away, and stood smiling to 
himself ; then he became suddenly fussy, arranging 
more papers, flicking dust, but smiling all through 
the performance of these trivialities. 

Henry left him soon, and on the way home 
thought : 

“ That sweet, elderly boy is dying to tell some- 
one what I said.” 

Steps sounded to rear, hurrying — and the colonel 
made up on him, dapper and buttoned and erect, 
his chest a little more military than when indoors. 

‘‘ Pm just going to lunch,” he said. “ I had no 
idea the time had passed so. Looked at my watch 
after you left and just shut my desk and followed.” 

They walked together, the colonel talking lightly 
on various themes with the air of a man thinking of 
another, like a schoolboy repeating the solution of a 
problem under his breath to memorise it. 

‘‘ Well, good morning ; I turn off here,” he said 
presently, standing still with neck well pressed back 
against his collar, smiling, hand extended. ‘‘ By 
the way,” he turned back, bubbling, scintillating, 

Solway is not London. You do not squat on the 
floor and smoke here with the other sex. ' Certainly 
never alone ” 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


65 


‘‘ Why ? ’’ 

‘‘ Well — they don’t do it here,” and the colonel 
lowered his head sidewise and looked up as if at 
the edge of his eyebrows, lips pursed the while. 

“ Oh ! ” said Henry lightly. 

The colonel’s odd gaze and puckers ebbed. 

“ No, you don’t do that here without hearing 
of it,” and the colonel’s eyes went wide. 

“ Oh, I don’t mind hearing,” said Henry with 
his light toss of head, the colonel infecting him 
and making him as gesticulative as an Italian actor — 
or ice-cream vendor, let us say. 

The colonel took a new measure of Henry. 

“ You don’t know our convenances^^ said he, with- 
out any elaborate histrionic display. 

“ I know only decency and freedom from ill- 
intent,” said Henry quietly — and then, with vigour, 
but still quietly, ‘‘and, damn it all, sir, if a man 
and woman have tastes in common, why shouldn’t 
they meet, unless, unless ” 

“ Unless ? ” 

“ Unless for fear of giving a chance for the de- 
praved to say, ‘ Oh, they do so ; why not we ? 
They can’t consider themselves right and us 
wrong.’ ” 

Colonel Jukes seemed thoughtful. He might 
have been present at a court martial by his air. 

“ That would be your only restraining thought 

E 


66 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


in not inviting a woman to see you and rave on your 
floor ? ” he asked, pressing his chin into his collar. 

‘‘ I think so — my only one,” Henry replied 
slowly. 

The colonel looked him long in the eye and then 
said : 

‘‘ Yes ; I believe you are all right. It is refresh- 
ing to meet you ; if you intend living like that we 
shall have some gossip in Solway. That sort of 
thing is not comme 

‘‘ No,” said Henry ; and I hear that those who 
make the convenances in Solway never read any- 
thing, never think anything — perhaps that is why 
they are what they are ? But, good God, do you 
tell me that whenever a man and woman are left 
alone in Solway they think of what Shakespeare 
called incestuous pleasure ! ” 

It was an ejaculation ; it was not spoken as a 
question ; and so the witty colonel enjoyed, 
bubblingly, his rejoinder : 

Yes — in Solway anyhow.” 

Oh, well,” sighed Henry, that explains 
Solway then.” 

They parted at that with a quick look each to 
each. 

“ Now,” thought Henry, he’s going to go and 
talk ; I know. And all he can talk is about the 
smoking, which I meant least. You see, it would be 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


67 


indelicate to say the rest to a lady — very terrible, 
very indelicate.” 

He squared his shoulders. He felt as if he was 
going to have a fight with Solway, if he touched it. 
He thought perhaps he had better not touch. 

Anti-climax : And then he gave a grim smile as 
he remembered the colonel’s twinkling eyes. Colonel 
Jukes had a sense of humour to such an extent that 
it saved him from ever seeing the tragic in life ; 
when a thing was not humorous to him it was 
merely painful ; whereas Bliss Henry saw humour 
and tragedy; also he saw squalor and buffoonery. 
He was not the sort of man that Colonel Jukes 
would say had a very great sense of humour. 


X 


H enry was ‘‘ far too direct,” oh, far too 
direct,” quite shockingly direct, when he 
came close to certain things, in the phrases 
he used to express how these things appeared in 
his eyes ; not that he was prone to heated invective, 
far from it — it was his precise, uncontrovertable 
exactness of statement and expression that made 
him “ oh, far too direct.” He was a very disturbing 
element when he came in touch with the prurient, 
for there was that about him that made them, in 
replying with the usual ‘‘ How shocking you are ! 
How vulgar ! How nasty ! ” know that he was 
nothing of the sort and that they were not honest. 

But Colonel Jukes liked him immensely — liked 
his directness, his desperate, flashing seriousness ; 
and the colonel was tickled at the thought of this 
dear, ingenuous man in Solway, just as he would 
have been tickled at the sight of, say, the parson 
reading prayers in a state of nature. The colonel 
was a clear-skinned bachelor, who had long since 
given up wine because it “ played the deuce with 
my side somehow.” He felt almost as if he would 
like to egg this stranger on, to egg him on to live up 
to his ideas in Solway. 


68 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


69 


But despite the hopes of the colonel’s practical- 
joker side, Bliss Henry did nothing unwonted for 
the moment. Henry left them alone — ^was in Sol- 
way, but not of it. He relished its grey days and 
its sunny, and the blue hill air over it ; and after 
Colonel Jukes’s explanation of Solway he lifted his 
eyes to the hills afresh, went for rambles on the 
moors, dismissed Solway, let the dirty taste that he 
had got in his mouth go from it in deep breaths as 
he walked, notebook in pocket, the surrounding 
country among heather and grouse. Solways rarely 
try to attack Bliss Henrys; they just wait for the 
Henrys to commit themselves, for they always get 
hurt in attacking. If the Henrys take a long time 
to commit themselves the Solways may give them 
‘‘ invitations,” in the hope of getting them into 
the hive and, once in, of burying them in with wax, 
right in the hive. 

But at present Henry strolled down to his book- 
seller, calm and self-possessed and free. It was 
Saturday afternoon and his journals should be 
awaiting him. 

The bookseller hailed him with joy, the morning 
shoppers being gone, the evening ones not yet 
claiming everybody’s attention. 

Come in, come in,” said the bookseller ; 
‘‘ don’t stand in the shop. I want a chat. Oh, 
your journals — Mr. Henry’s papers — thanks — there 


70 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


you are; now ” he led the way through the 

library into the back premises, the ‘^circulating 
library,’’ where a medley of books was stacked 
awaiting classification. 

They stood together looking at the litter, and 
then the bookseller, straightening a stack of old 
books, remarked : 

“ I’ve been thinking about our talk when last you 
were in here.” He rose from his task and looked up 
in rising. “ Don’t you think you aim too high ? 
Your ideas, I mean — not practical, not practic- 
able ? ” 

Henry fixed him with his eye and read this not 
as a doubt, nearly so much as a feeling, of him. 

“ Quite practicable — when alone,” he said. “ Of 
course ‘ other existences there are which clash with 

ours.’ Pray don’t think me Oh, no, I see ” 

(he looked in the face of the bookseller), “ I see you 
don’t think me selfish when I say that. I speak as 
an aspirer, not as misanthrope. At first when you 
said ‘ Don’t you think you aim too high ? ’ I 
thought I had been mistaken in you, that you were 
of those who are quite unwilling to listen to one 
who does aspire unless to, when he is done, say : 
‘ Don’t you think you aim too high ? ’ ” He gave 
his droll smile. “ But no, you are not of those. 
You are merely remembering those who say so and, 
thanking them for the reminder, as it were, saying 


A Wilderness of Monkeys yi 

the phrase to yourself, asking yourself if they, or 
you, are right. My friend — you are right.” 

The bookseller grew grave and his eyes were very 
wide and full. 

“ I wish I had met you long ago,” he said. 

‘‘ There you are,” said Henry ; ‘‘ one always 
does — ^we are so scarce and that makes us, by God, 
very lonely sometimes.” 

The bookseller’s eyebrows lifted. It somehow 
eased him to hear that tone. 

“ Yes,” said Henry slowly ; ‘‘ one always wishes, 
when one attains something, that one had seen 
the simple way to attain it before — but perhaps one 
was not ready then — oh, I don’t know — it’s queer 
— ^yes ; it’s always lonely, with just an occasional and 
magnificent oasis for anyone who wants to feel — 
feel — eh — oh, mounting on, and not sliding back. 
But if one never met another with such thoughts 
one might let them go — as quite futile. It’s queer 
— oh, I don’t know.” 

Well — there is my point ; is it possible to go 
on as you seemed to indicate, more than to say, in 
our last talk, to go on so — always ? ” 

‘‘ For a certainty one must begin by making one’s 
heights and not one’s depths the standard. That’s 
where women irritate me. See,” he took his stick 
loosely by thumb and finger and began swinging it 
like a pendulum. “ See — the aspirer comes up here 


72 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


and swings down and conies up here. He is, how- 
ever, the soul of honour, and the woman knows 
that ! ” (He kept on swinging his stick and the 
bookseller watched it, fascinated.) ‘‘ She catches 
him as he swings past here — here — the bottom of 
the swing.” (He swung his stick with higher ends 
to the swinging.) ‘‘ Some women, God bless them, 
do come up with the man — a bit — perhaps up to 
there” (he indicated a small segment of the swing), 
“ bless them for that.” 

‘‘ Some of them,” said the bookseller, following 
keenly, “ pretend to — till they are married.” 

Henry glared on him. 

“ Yes,” he said ; ‘‘ that’s another point. I had 
not thought of that just now.” 

“ Never mind. Go on. I’m only seeing side- 
issues — additions. Go on with your ‘ symbol,’ ” 
Haskell requested. 

Bliss Henry swung his stick again. 

“ The majority just sit down there,” he said, in- 
dicating the low end of the pendulum’s swing with 
the forefinger of his disengaged left hand ; “ heavy, 
weighty as dead meat ; and if the man refuses to 
acknowledge that he has touched them in passing, 
there is a row.” 

“ You would not have him refuse to be re- 
sponsible ? ” 

“ God forbid ! The man who could refuse is a 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


73 


cad, despicable — despicable as the woman who, 
knowing his sense of honour, relies on it and never 
swings up for his sad sake.” 

He paused a moment, gazing like a visionary, and 
swung his stick again till he swung it level at each 
height. Then said he : 

“ When the man and woman swing thus to- 
gether, and stop not at all at the bottom of 
the swing, but swing thus — thus ! — thus ! ” He 
was swinging his stick so that it described the 
whole semicircle — the whole possible swing of a 
pendulum. 

‘‘ What then ? ” asked the bookseller. 

Henry raised the stick erect as in a salute, and 
then described the top half of the circle. 

“ It will not be for a long, long time ; but we 
who know must go on unfaltering. There are 
dangers ; and one must remember them ; there 
are too many evil, mean, despicable people to take 
advantage of every good to hang evil on it.” 

‘‘ The crawly thing on your bust of Pallas, or 
whatever it was ? ” suggested the bookseller. 

Henry gave a glad nod. 

“ Yes — just like that.” 

“ But what then — what then ? ” said the book- 
seller ; “ and you will observe that we are back to 
sex again.” 

Um ! Yes — damn it, ’tis so. Well ! Perhaps 


74 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


when we get that settled we shall be able to go on ; 
perhaps that must first be settled.” 

He took his stick and swung it slowly, pendulum- 
wise, and both watched it swinging till it swung 
out straight at either top. 

Suddenly he gave it a spin that made it form 
the whole circle. Then he held it erect as if to 
make once more the upper half alone, and as he 
did so a step entered the shop, paused. The book- 
seller did not go out, leaving it to his assistant to 
attend ; but the step came on and a woman’s rich 
voice said : ‘‘ Mr. Haskell in ? Thanks — all right — 
I may go in, I suppose ? ” and in to them, following 
her rich voice, came a young woman — suddenly 
paused, startled, drew erect, stared straight at Bliss 
Henry with a sort of fascinated stare, and her form 
oddly dignified in its drawing up. Then she seemed 
to dismiss him — with his stick held up so oddly — 
and turned to the bookseller. 

Excuse me, interrupting — intruding — have my 
books come yet ? ” 

‘‘ Yes, Miss Montague,” said Haskell, and dived 
out with her to the shop. 


XI 


I T was a grey' day, not a depressing grey day, 
but a grey day when the twin church towers 
in the climbing High Street were washed with 
shreds of passing mist and stood all day as if seen 
through tissue paper. And the fields and hills and 
trees had that look of the paintings of those artists 
who, having painted dreamingly on a canvas, scrape 
and sand-paper the canvas. But never mind the 
process, nor let it disenchant us. The effect is 
there. 

Such was the day. And Bliss Henry, a lover of 
all days, loved this too, having a lonely, quiet match 
in his soul for it. 

It was difficult for Bliss Henry to work, for mere 
rejoicing in that veiled day ; and perhaps because 
of something else — but he was not sure of that 
yet. 

It was a day to think of simple, dull, porcelain 
vases he had seen in curio shops, to think of the grey 
pools lying solitary in high, unexpected places in 
the hills above ; to think of quiet and strong 
cadences in the works of the authors whose work 
came to him in the way that things came nearest 
75 


76 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


to him, in a mellow and tranquil way, as though 
they had suffered and yet were fair — and so were 
fair, and therefore were fair. 

He had an idea, as a rule, that he did not care 
for men who wore rings ; but he put on, that day, 
an old ring that had been his grandfather’s, an 
old gold collet ring of rare make with his grand- 
mother’s hair in it. It was in keeping with the 
day — and his mood. It spoke of old things passed 
away, old loves, old dreams, and the world drift- 
ing on, and told him nothing was real and sure 
but dreams. 

He dressed for the day. He dressed for many 
things, being not of those who dress but for eating ; 
for making the seeing of a play into a bourgeois 
‘‘ correct thing ” ; for marriages and deaths. 
Dressing often for his own moods, he dressed also 
often for the moods of the quiet nature. So it 
was that he earned sometimes a name for being 
“ groomed ” ; and yet he was groomed in his own 
way. 

He was glad, immensely glad in some quiet, inner 
place, of his consciousness ; glad in the grey day, 
with the hills peeping through, and the grey night- 
fall, with the blobs of gold spattering it down the 
village street and dropped here and there across 
the hazy landscape. The dreaminess eased him, for 
he had felt a something he refused to dwell upon ; 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


77 


something not easing, in the sudden coming into his 
talk, in the bookseller’s, of that girl who read the 
belles-lettres. 

He had been immensely aware of her. Her voice 
had come to him very decidedly. Their eyes had 
met very decidedly. Perhaps he had thought it was 
all because of the belles-lettres — tastes in common 
between people in the midst of a society that had 
no such tastes. But then he remembered how his 
heart had leapt and her eyes had — was it challenged 
him ? There was some lure, some attraction. 
Was it the sense of kindred tastes ? If so — all was 
well. But she had disquieted him somehow, a little 
excited him. There was a feeling in his heart 
something like the childhood days’ ‘‘ bubbling ” 
the day before going off on holiday into an unknown 
green world by some promised sea. He thrust her 
gently to the side in his mind. 

And this grey day helped him. He preferred to 
walk in a world not realised ; the only world that 
suited him was one not realised. 

Yet it was good to know that someone else in 
Solway must understand these feelings ; reading 
such books she would, surely. But what upset him 
was that she who, reading such books, must so 
realise, had somehow moved him. 

“ A damned magnetic stir ! ” he broke out, 
staring out of his window at the gradual dusk, his 


78 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


back to the table where his work lay, not done to 
his mind to-day because of the memory of her 
voice and her presence — of which he had been 
aware, too much aware. 


XII 


S UDDENLY he remembered that he had 
received an invitation to an ‘‘ at home ” at 
Colonel Jukes’s — and had accepted. 

To go to an “ at home ” had never been, to Bliss 
Henry, a momentous procedure. It had certainly 
never fascinated him, as it does some ; had assuredly 
often bored, as it does some. But he had not yet 
reached the stage of quite living his own life, of 
doing nothing at all simply because he had been 
asked in a slack moment to do it, and in a slack 
moment had promised ; and, because of his 
promises, he always fulfilled, trying to look as if he 
enjoyed fulfilling them. 

He managed to get through the evening without 
much fret, with but one annoyance, and one — ^well, 
you shall hear of both these matters. 

The annoyance was occasioned by the white- 
faced bank manager, a thin, pretty young man, 
with a gushing voice and an ingratiating pose, who 
seemed to take to Bliss Henry more than Bliss 
Henry took to him — though probably that was only 
his manner. If one had not been told that he was 
a bank manager one would have taken him for a 
competent and successful shop-walker. 

79 


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A Wilderness of Monkeys 


“ Someone,” Henry thought, “ has told him I am 
an author,” for the manager spoke of authors. One 
he had met, and described him : ‘‘ With all his 
travels in the wilds and that droll way — don’t you 
know ? — of going off to the wilds so often — don’t 
you know ? — he is never gauche in a drawing-room.” 

‘‘ Oh, is that so ? ” asked Henry quietly. ‘‘ He 
certainly is not in hunting-camps, in ships’ fore- 
castles, in logging camps or shearing yards.” 

“ What — have you — eh — have you met him — eh 
travelled too ? ” 

“ Yes — and I had the pleasure of seeing him 
once in a salmon cannery on the Fraser River, where 
I was working, and once in a sheep-shearing gang 
in an Australian back-block. He knew how to con- 
duct himself there — it is quite interesting to hear 
that he is not gauche in a drawing-room. He has, 
of course, a great self-control.” And inwardly 
Henry thought : “Hang him ; he’ll think I’m 
bragging about having travelled — and I’m not ! ” 

Then said Henry : “ Pray don’t take me for a 
moneyed traveller. My trip to the West of Canada 
was a boyish escapade more than anything else. I 
could not get on as I wished at home, so I gathered 
together what little money I could and went West. 
Then I discovered that I could write. I came 
home with a bagful of notes and they got me a job 
on a paper as ‘ Our Special Commissioner in Canada.’ 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


8i 


I sat in an attic in Tottenham Court Road writing 
them up, one a week, at thirty shillings each. Then, 
thanks to their success, the half-lie became a whole 
truth, and I was sent off to Australia by the paper 
in question.” 

‘‘ How interesting ! ” said the manager. “ What 
was the paper ? ” 

“ I never mention it,” said Henry. “ It had a 
circulation of 350,000 a week.” 

The pretty manager had a thoughtful look — he 
was of those who look thoughtful when thinking. 
He judged from Henry’s expression that there had 
been some witticism ; he accordingly gave a forced 
smile, very slight, however, lest there had not been 
a witticism. 

Then : 

“ When are you going to the wilds again ? ” he 
asked, with an air as of recovering his urbanity. 

Henry thought, without showing it. He often 
looked blank when thinking. He seemed to recog- 
nise the drawing-room polite insult and was about 
to respond brusquely ; When I want to see men 
again ” ; but looking at this pretty gentleman, the 
incompetent manager, he found him not worthy 
of his steel — not even that pretty gentleman’s own 
steel, as one might say, his kind of lady’s bodkin. 
He just left it at that, gave no reply — just paused 
as one can do, looked absent as one can do, and then 


82 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


bowed farewell and passed on among the moving 
little crowd that laughed and talked so as to be not 
silent. 

This palm-tub affair was not Jukes’s really, but 
his sister’s ; yet to the sister’s credit be it said that 
she did it as seldom as possible, having no natural 
bent that way. But when others in Solway did 
things like that, one had to do them, now and again 
(if as seldom as possible), just not too seldom to 
be ignored on the rambling hill street on those 
mornings, two mornings a week (I forget which), 
when those who lived in the houses that looked 
through the trees along the hill came down to town 
to get more goods on a long credit and pay off a 
little of the last bill — with a discount if possible. 

Bliss Henry, however, managed to get pleasure 
everywhere. In the mythological hell, I fancy, he 
might have admired the design of the toasting-forks 
or the colour of the flames. Here he found a kind 
of peace in the dull brown expanse, the great 
polished surface of the floor where the dancers sat 
round by the wall between the dances, two and 
two, two and two (a splash of shirt front, and a 
daub of slight millinery), two by two as it is in the 
little old ballad about the ark, which he remem- 
bered then and which helped him to wear a plea- 
sant smile. 

He was not a dancer, and so gravitated to another 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


83 


room, where were card tables. There were a good 
many people there too, standing in groups. Music 
sounded from some unseen place and the frou- 
frou of feet began in the next room, the large room, 
going on anon into a sort of long sighing of th ” 
infinitely prolonged. He felt as if he would wel- 
come a drunken navvy fallen by accident into the 
midst of the assembly, sprawled on the floor, trying 
to regain his feet — quite gauche. He could not 
play bridge ; and bridge partners were forming. 
But he played whist, in an emergency, and so was 
soon seated at a table with a trio that he liked — 
they looked as if they played whist similarly. 

Then — as romance writers might say — the strange 
thing happened. 

He felt as a bit of filing might feel, drawn to a 
magnet ; or as a magnet might feel, drawing, by 
reason of what was in it, though by no will of its 
own, the filing ; or was it two magnets ? He 
simply sagged a little back, or was drawn back 
where he sat. He turned his head, and as he did 
so a girl at another table, a girl sitting with her 
back to him (she who read the books of value in his 
eyes), sagged similarly and turned her head. 

It felt an eternity that he leant there in his chair 
thus turned to her. He was in horror. He waited 
for the three at his table to say : ‘‘ Well — sir ? ” 
Then he drew erect, sat foursquare, raised his head. 


84 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


grew as it were in his chair ; and as he came thus 
erect he heard the girl behind speaking, in a beauti- 
ful voice with just an odd thrill in it, and a some- 
thing else, as if, though speaking to someone at her 
table, the voice was given an impetus toward him. 
He drew a little more erect, found his three all 
examining their cards, just as they had been before 
that brief by-play that had seemed so far from 
brief; and then, and only then, the three at his 
table looked at him, looking up quickly, simultan- 
eously, with just a tinge of question in their eyes, 
he thought, of course, as if they noted something 
and did not understand. He wondered if they had 
seen. He focussed them — and they had a new look 
at him, as if for the first time. 

But then the whist began and it served the in- 
tended purpose — it sped the time till one might go 
away without offending anyone. He went home 
rejoicing in the open air, the empty little town 
lying under the night with breaths of air passing 
through it, and was really quite fatigued enough 
by the hot rooms to simply be glad to fall into bed 
and go to sleep in his own room with the windows 
wide open to the open, clear night, forgetting the 
last few hours. 

At first he had thought that he would not sleep 
at all. A restless night such as he had known in mid- 
summer London seemed to be before him, the hot 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


85 


air of the rooms having thickened his brain. But 
there came, fortunately, to his mind a snatch of a 
conversation overheard at his elbow that night. A 
lady with a high voice, and a high colour, and much 
rustling of skirt, had been talking with a man beside 
her. 

He had heard the man say : “ Is that so ? — And 
is he also Semitic ? ” 

And the lady had replied : “ Oh, no, he’s clair- 
voyant.” 

That fragment of, clearly, cultured talk at- 
tempted boldly, jumped back into his mind then; 
he tittered — and fell asleep. 

Next day, as he sat at work, he suddenly dropped 
his pen, and rose and walked to the window, and 
looked down his elbow of village street. 


XIII 


M ISS MONTAGUE was passing 



XIV 


B liss henry went back to his table and 
sat frowning. A commotion was in his 
veins and it prevented work. Then the 
maid entered and said : 

‘‘ Mr. Squires.” 

“ Squires ! ” he thought ; and then the bearer 
of the name entered — and this Mr. Squires, he 
perceived and recollected, was one of his partners 
at whist of the night before. Henry had taken him 
to be a man who killed such evenings with whist 
(perhaps taken him so rightly), and yet — what 
think you ? — Mr. Squires had come to invite Mr. 
Bliss Henry to an ‘‘ evening ” he was going to give. 
And Henry had come to Solway for peace ! 

It was after sitting on the edge of a chair for ten 
minutes that Mr. Squires made his invitation, and 

he did it so gently that 

‘‘ Hell mend him,” thought Henry, and accepted. 


87 


XV 


T he bookseller came to Henry’s rooms two 
evenings later, self-invited, drawn thither 
merely by kinship ; and Henry welcomed 
him with joy, uncoated him, thrust a chair for him, 
poked the fire, laid by him the evil cigarettes and 
the unnecessary tobacco- jar for which we men 
live, and matches, and then lay down on the rug 
and hit out his own pipe upon the bars, preparatory 
to recharging. 

The bookseller looked round the walls and at the 
mantelpiece, lit his already filled pipe and rose, the 
room being quiet and feeling just as if it was his 
blissful own, and wandered to the books. 

The fire crackled. The author lit his pipe with a 
coal, which he liked to do because of boyish memories 
of a tale of an island by Jules Verne, in which some 
character — Penfield — Pyefield — he could never re- 
member the name, had done so. He had promised 
himself, in his boyhood, that he would one day so 
light a pipe. Not only one day had he done it, but 
often. He had a way of dreaming his dreams true, 
even these tiny, foolish dreams that had their be- 
ginning in a boy’s romance and an illustration in it. 
88 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


89 


“ Hullo,” said the bookseller, “ I didn’t know 
you had published poems,” and he took down a 
small volume and read somewhere, Henry did not 
know where, for the bookseller faced him. But 
what the bookseller read was that lyric called “ A 
Song of Silence ” : 

“ If thou possess thy soul in peace 
It matters not what may befall 
From Springtime till the Summer’s lease 
Of flowers be o’er and on the wall 
No roses flutter or birds call.” 

He read on and paused, and read twice the stanza : 

“ Even she who sets thy heart aglow 

With love’s strange lure, half sad, half gay. 

Must in a little rise and go 

Into the dusk the wonted way : 

What love speech, there, can a man say ? ” 

He wondered if our author were morbid ; but, 
looking on his face and seeing how the leaping fire- 
light made his eyes amazing and showed the wild 
youth in them, he decided he was not. 

The bookseller closed the book and put it back 
on the toy shelf, and then sat down in the easy 
chair and looked at our author very keenly out of 
the corner of his eyes, his head a little turned from 
a preceding stare at the twinkling fire. 

‘‘ Been seeing life in Solway ? ” he asked — or re- 
marked — it would be difficult to say which. 


90 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


“ Yes ; well — I’ve been looking at Solway. I say, 
who are these men at the corner ? How do they 
live ? They are always there ; and always their boots 
are in repair, I notice ; but yet they never work. 
They just stand in a sort of fire zone of expectora- 
tion, and sometimes double- shuffle, and now and 
then chuck a chest and leer at those who pass by. 
Who are they ? How do they live ? ” 

“ They ! They are husbands of ‘ factory girls.’ 
You get the word for them in books of that period,” 
and he pointed to the Fieldings on the mantel. 

“ Oh,” said Henry and shuddered ; ‘‘ legalised 
pimps — eh ? More despicable than a Whitechapel 
trull’s bully.” 

“ Well, that’s street-corner Solway,” said the 
bookseller. “I see you take it all in. I hear you 
have already been to see two other phases of Solway 
life — the retired military, and the distinctly upper 
ten of the upper middle class.” He paused and 
said : ‘‘ And you know the bourgeois shopkeeper.” 

Henry looked up and smiled. 

“ You would add — compare ? ” he asked. 

Well,” and the bookseller laughed. 

“ I can tell you slap off which I respect most. I 
could tell you which I personally consider of most 
value — if it wouldn’t sound like confounded pat- 
ronage.” He paused and added : ‘‘ I do love your 
thinking, aspiring, at least desiring, bourgeois shop- 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


91 


keeper, but — but I don’t know that he’s typical — 
the one I know. He may be an exception. And 
I’m hanged, by the way, if I think the military 
man typical. He got me aside after a bit at a 
function of his I was at and told me he was ^ most 
damnably bored.’ ” 

The bookseller laughed. 

“ But the women like it,” he said. It’s a con- 
cession to them.” 

So he said.” 

‘‘ And what do you think ? ” 

I believe,” said Henry, ‘‘ that there is a woman 
who is herself, and not a member, not just an un- 
questioning, savage unit of a union with unwritten 
laws and rules by which the world is kept from 
progressing, a union that, if one questions it, 
replies that it is protecting its units against man ! ” 
You must remember your legalised pimps at the 
corner,” said Haskell, with the tone of an admon- 
ishing Plato carefully guiding the logical unfolding 
of an argument. 

I do — they are one of the outcomes of ” 

U Of ? » 

‘‘ Lust.” 

‘‘ Whew ! ” said the bookseller. “ I thought you 
were going to preach annihilation of marriage laws 
— or free love.” 

Henry leapt up and very quietly, in a strained 


92 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


voice, said : Mr. Haskell, never mention free love 
to me again, I beg of you — and pray never read 
into any dream that I may talk, a materialism.” 

How long are you going to be in Solway ? ” 
asked the bookseller after a pause. 

“ Some months.” 

“ Oh ! ” and then they both shifted their posi- 
tions and the air changed somehow. 

By the way,” said Henry, I see there are very 
distinct classes in Solway, and what ^ goes ’ — to use 
a vulgarism — in one, at one value, has another value 
in another class. I mean to say, for example, at 
the colonel’s was one set, at the upper ten of the 
middles, as you call it, was another set. The few 
who were at both functions seemed to stand higher 
at the upper ten of the middles than they did at 
the colonel’s ; got more kow-towing there.” 

“ I don’t cotton. Oh — yes ! I see what you 
mean — I think I do.” 

“ Well, an example will make it clear — Miss 
Montague, for instance, at the colonel’s palm-tub 
affair was just one of them ; at the upper ten of 
the middles she soared a little. Though Miss 
Montague did not condescend she was treated as 
if she had the right to if she cared.” 

“ Was Mrs. Montague at both ? ” 

No, she was only at the colonel’s and there, 
when I was introduced, she gave me such a queer 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


93 


scrutiny, as if she was measuring me for clothes, 
and then turned and looked at Miss Jukes who intro- 
duced us, and then looked at me again, and then 
began to talk and turned the talk on to the country 
and the families of the country until I got a bit 
fogged. I just bowed to her tangle of histories, 
bowed and inclined my head and said nothing till I 
heard her say, at last, ^ That was my father and 
saw her staring at me, so I said : ^ Oh, indeed. That 
is very interesting.’ She seemed to sort of change 
then, stared at me and looked — well, as if she had 
had enough, or was angry a bit. Another of the 
women who were at both places spoke to me in the 
same strain — asked if I knew the country round 
about, and before I could answer dashed off like 
this : ‘ The moor roads are very beautiful — but 
they have such sharp turns — and the hedges are too 
high, don’t you think ? When I am driving our dog- 
cart I am always afraid of running over people — oh, 
but I’d not for worlds let anyone else drive the 
pony — he’s such a high-stepper and has so fine a 
pedigree.’ I said : ‘Yes, the lanes do have sharp 
curves, don’t they ? ’ and she got red.” 

The bookseller smiled. 

“ I’m hanged if I understand what they are 
getting at,” said Henry. “ She began again so 
queerly about the country and seemed to forget 
what she was talking about and got back again to 


94 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


her pedigree pony. A lady near — a Mrs. Goodge — 
leant across and said : ‘ Oh — Mrs. Stokes, how is your 
dear daughter ? ’ And the amazing lady answered : 
‘ Oh, she is better, thanks — she’s getting better. I 
could leave her to-day to come to dear Mrs. 
Squires. The poor child is, however, a little 
despondent — influenza, you know — it leaves one 
despondent. She begged me to come over in a 
brougham and not to drive over myself in the dog- 
cart. It’s such a high dog-cart, you know, and 
she’s nervous, and the pony is such a spirited animal. 
When I drive out the villagers all run out and cry : 
“ Oh, there’s Mrs. Stokes in the high, lovely dog- 
cart with the fine pony 1 ” ’ ” 

“ What did Mrs. Goodge say ? ” asked the book- 
seller. 

‘‘ Eh — oh, she said : ‘ Poor child — she has the dog- 
cart on her nerves also, then. You’ll have to get 
her to live it down ; tell her it’s just influenza, and 
one gets one’s head a little turned of course even 
over a dog-cart.’ And Mrs. Stokes answered : 
‘ Yes, of course. It’s a very high dog-cart.’ And 
the other lady answered : ‘ Oh, I quite see that. 
Well, do remember me to the sweet innocent.’ ” 
Henry lay back and groaned. “ What does it all 
mean ? ” he cried. “ Wouldn’t it make you tired ? ” 

“ Or amused ? ” suggested the bookseller. 

“ That depends. If it’s harmless, yes, amused. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


95 


It’s funny ; but that sort of thing is all part of 
the stone that sinks people.” 

“ Helps to weight the pendulum,” suggested the 
bookseller, ‘‘ seeing you will be serious.” 

Up went Henry’s head and he and his guest smiled 
in each other’s eyes. 

There was a tap at the door and the maid entered. 

“ Colonel Jukes,” she said, half terrified, half 
proud. 

The bookseller shifted uneasily, felt his necktie, 
rose. Henry gave him a quick look. 

“ Sit down on your stern, damn’e ! ” he said. 

It’s only another man.” 

“ Thanks,” said the bookseller, and then laughed 
a chuckling laugh in his throat, and then composed 
his features and twinkled on Bliss Henry. 

Colonel Jukes entered and Henry went to meet 
him, and took his hand, and then his coat. 

“ Oh,” said Jukes, you’ve got company, per- 
haps I ” 

‘‘ Come away,” said Henry. “ I expect you know 
each other — in such a small place as Solway ” 

The bookseller rose. Henry gave him a quick, 
sharp look — then a quick sharp look to Colonel 
Jukes and rasped suavely : 

“ Colonel Jukes — Mr. Haskell.” 

“ Oh, we’ve often met over business,” said Jukes, 
extending a hand. 


96 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


They shook hands ; Henry pushed a chair gently 
to the fire and clapped it, looking at Jukes, who 
subsided. 

The bookseller sat down, thrusting his chair back 
a little so that it was level with Jukes’s, neither 
before nor behind. 

Henry sat down, gently pushing the evil tobacco- 
jar toward Colonel Jukes, and, shaking the match- 
box, set that necessity also before him. 


XVI 


N ext day was Saturday and Henry strolled 
down the High Street of our little hill-side 
town, his eyes gazing out to the far fields 
(with the white of roads winding amongst them) 
till he came to the bookseller’s shop half-way down 
that rambling thoroughfare. In the front shop an 
early yokel was buying, possibly acting on the advice 
of the Y.M.C.A. Superintendent, who had heard 
of it, a copy of Smiles’s Self-Help, Henry perceived 
him in the act of final decision, eyes pathetically 
staring, mouth pathetically bulging, the assistant 
watching him as a terrier watches a rat. The boy 
was dusting, or at least moving about gently and 
furtively with a feather duster in his hand. 

‘‘ Mr. Haskell in ? ” said Henry. 

Yes, sir.” 

The assistant, employed upon fussily tying up 
the Self-Help^ looked up jerkily between his slapping 
of the parcel’s ends and said : “ Oh, Mr. Henry’s 
journals. Boy — over there. Mr. Henry’s papers.” 

The boy, infected by the assistant’s manner, fell 
a-fussing over some papers, with his feather duster 
under his arm, till the assistant should be free to 
G 97 


98 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


come and thrust him aside in the wonted manner 
and ‘he be able to watch the desired papers being 
found. 

“ Yes, sir, straight through,” grunted the boy. 

Henry passed through to the library. The first 
person he saw, for some reason, was Miss Montague ; 
but then he had been taken by surprise. He looked 
quickly to Haskell. Colonel Jukes was in amiable 
talk with the bookseller, and both raised their heads, 
turning about at his step, and greeted him, Haskell 
with his smile and Jukes with : “ Ah, here he is ! 
Here,” he turned to his sister who stood by, is 
the man who was responsible for my lateness of 
last night.” 

Henry bowed to Miss Jukes and she gave him a 
friendly greeting, with a look of mock reproval. 
Miss Montague looked on Bliss Henry with expres- 
sionless face, stood erect, squarely fronting him — 
and then her eyes sparkled on him. 

“ You know Miss Montague — I think you met 
” began Miss Jukes. 

Miss Montague, with her alert, quivering 
graciousness, turned from one to the other and 
said : ‘‘ Oh — well, I fancy we saw each other at 
least.” 

‘‘ Yes ; Miss Montague was sitting behind me 
at the next table,” said Henry, also looking from 
one to the other. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


99 


Oh, you gamblers ! ” cried Miss Jukes. 

“ Fd prefer whist to dancing myself,” Jukes 
broke in, turning from the bookseller ; and then 
came that bachelorly twinkle, and a smoke and a 
talk to either,” he added, and then the twinkle in- 
creased. To Henry’s mind there was some further 
banter held in reserve ; but the colonel half turned 
back again to the bookseller when Henry looked on 
his face thus expectant, or prepared. 

‘‘ If they were all like last night’s smoke and talk,” 
said the bookseller. 

Jukes returned then to the others, his eyes twink- 
ling on Miss Montague and his sister in a swift, 
comprehensive glance. 

“ That’s the worst of women,” he said. “ If only 
they’d — eh — squat down on one’s rug with us and 
smoke — and rave with us,” his gaze flickered half- 
way to Bliss Henry. 

‘‘ George ! ” cried Miss Jukes. 

Haskell looked a little puzzled, scenting some 
banter, but not ‘‘ in the know.” 

I agree with you,” broke in Miss Montague, 
with an odd, supple quickness, a kind of alert spring, 
as it were, into the conversation. ‘‘ I like to see a 
man smoking and at ease ; and I don’t see why a 
woman can’t keep him company and join in his 
raves, as you call them.” 

Miss Jukes’s eyes opened wide. Jukes gave an 


lOO 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


odd little frown, in his turn, as though of mock 
seriousness. 

Henry felt a leap at his heart. He knew that the 
bookseller’s eyes turned to him then. 

‘‘ At least there is a possibility of comradeship 
there,” he said, and felt somehow as if he didn’t 
mean it now, as if, in that atmosphere, to be faithful 
to a former expression of belief in comradeship 
were to be its dupe. 

‘‘ Oh, tush — comradeship — my dear man,” said 
Jukes and fumbled for his pince-nez ; is not that 
a sentimentalist’s idea ? ” His blue eye was both 
roguish and cold. 

“ Sentimental ? ” said Henry. He had been 
caught on a tender place or he would just have 
given back persiflage for persiflage, levity for levity, 
instead of getting so serious. “ Do you know what 
a sentimentalist is ? He is one who hunts for a 
thing he will not possess. If one wants comradeship 
and gets it,” he felt getting back to his own view- 
point, “ is he a sentimentalist ? ” 

“ I have not ever heard that definition of a senti- 
mentalist,” said Jukes with a show of interest. 
Always when in the company of women his facial 
expressions were like an actor’s — he used his eye- 
brows, his eyes, his mouth, the canting and bobbing 
of his head, to aid and accompany talk. “ Your 
argument is right — but your definition, well, it is 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


lOI 


not mine,” he plucked up and twinkled again, his 
hand going round and round in a little circle before 
him, holding the closed pince-nez. 

The bookseller withdrew ; but it was only a 
moment’s withdrawal to a shelf ; he opened a book 
there and turning to a page walked slowly back, 
book in left hand, right hand finger-tips daintily 
turning the pages, said : ‘‘ Chambers says, ‘ Senti- 
ment : a thought occasioned by feeling ’ — um — 
‘ exhibition of feeling. Sentimental : having or 
abounding in sentiments or reflections ; having an 
excess of sentiment or feeling ; affectedly tender.’ ” 
He looked up and closed his lips tight and scrutinised 
the company like a parson after reading the text 
and before going on to its dilution or decoration. 

‘‘ There you are ! ” cried Jukes, and was not aware 
that the bookseller was quietly thinking : “ Dear 
me, little Colonel Jukes is affectedly everything — 
every expression — every gesture.” 

Haskell turned about, his face still toward the 
company, and put the book back in its place. The 
colonel was staring ahead of him. He felt that the 
ladies expected something of him. Miss Montague’s 
head swung left and right gently. 

“ Your definition is your own,” fired the colonel 
after a pause. 

Good ! ” said Henry. I shan’t try to foist it 
on you nor on another then.” 


102 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


“ And we can’t call you a plagiarist,” interjected 
the bookseller. 

‘‘ Keep to Chambers,” said Bliss Henry. “ Let’s 
keep to Chambers,” he went on ; I’ll meet you 
there. Is it in your eyes an affectation of feeling 
that prompts me to say I wish that comradeship ? ” 

“ You have said it then ? ” asked Jukes, and gave 
Miss Montague one of his delightful sparkles. 

‘‘ Let me hint so now, for the sake of ” 

An argument,” suggested Miss Montague. 

“ In the fine sense, to arrive at a goal,” said Henry, 
‘‘ not to dispute.” 

And at the same time Miss Jukes was crying 
out : 

Now we’re going to have an argument ! ” 
Never mind, one sometimes arrives so,” Haskell 
replied, for Miss Jukes had accompanied her cry 
with a look at him and a little shudder. 

Miss Jukes turned away and looked at the shelves. 
Miss Montague remained smiling, eager ; the look 
on her face was that of one who knows that after 
talk is over cometh always laughter and the old, 
inevitable, amusing story, freshly returned to. 

If,” continued Henry, you think I say so be- 
cause I regard sentiment — mere feeling — ” he 
underlined it, as it were, ‘‘ more important than 
reason, I don’t know that I agree. I’d rather be 
comrade,” he plunged on, with a woman than,” 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 103 

he took a leap, ‘‘ perhaps you have noticed the 
spitters at your corners— -the factory girls’ husbands 
— than that ! ” 

Miss Montague did not look shocked. Neither 
did Miss Jukes. But only Miss Montague looked 
elated. 

Well,” said Jukes, ‘‘ true ! I agree with you 
there,” but he looked round about as if thinking 
that perhaps his sister might be ready to go, and 
stuck his pince-nez in his waistcoat. 

Miss Montague drew closer. Henry felt a thrill 
suddenly — the emotion he had felt before in her 
presence — but whether it was kin with the scent of 
a rose or was more like a snake’s unconscious rattle 
he did not know. There was no mistaking the fact 
that there was a thrill, an emotion. 

‘‘ And I think my feeling is right and my reason 
is sound,” he went on nevertheless, when I say 
that comradeship between man and woman is more 
lasting than what is commonly called — love,” he 
said, and had a difficulty in saying it — something 
seemed trying to weight his speech. He had a vision 
of a manacled man with a great ball dragging at his 
heels. 

The odd, magnetic thrill died suddenly ; the word 
seemed to have slain it. 

“ I agree,” cried Miss Montague, and Miss Jukes 
turned back amazed from the shelves. She had 


104 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


been listening ! “ I do agree,” cried Miss Montague, 

Fve always got on well with men. I like men. I 
say it quite frankly ” (the thrill woke suddenly). 
“ I’ve bird-nested with my cousins over at Bavelaw 
and enjoyed it far more than skipping-rope. I’ve 
gone round galleries with artists and enjoyed it far 
better than going round with some old dowager 
with a catalogue and lorgnette. I’ve even dared 
the conventions and met men friends in London 
and lunched with them. Everywhere I go I make 
friends with men — and I expect I’ve been called a 
flirt because of it. That’s what one gets — told not 
to flirt.” 

Her voice dropped. She looked round. Miss 
Jukes was at the far end of the shop now, had fled 
farther this time. 

“ I’ve even smoked,” said Miss Montague quietly, 
seeing Miss Jukes so far off, ‘‘ with men,” and she 
gave the most engaging look to all three. 

Henry frowned. Jukes bubbled and muttered, 
‘‘ Oh, fie ! ” The bookseller smiled affably. Henry, 
knowing the bookseller now, saw a something be- 
hind the smile and wondered what it was. 

‘‘ I like Mr. Henry’s idea of comradeship,” said 
Miss Montague suddenly solemn, almost stern. 

Henry was moved again — his heart leapt. He 
felt he had done her an injustice. 

The bookseller said quietly : ‘‘ And you agree 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 105 

with him, against Colonel Jukes ; you agree that 
he is not a sentimentalist — even according to his 
own definition ? For to believe in the comradeship, 
as you do, is to believe in it as an end, not as a 
means.” 

“ Pm afraid I don’t understand,” said Miss 
Montague a little frigidly. 

Haskell, at any rate, did not take her coolness as 
a sign that he there ceased to be on equal terms 
and became — her bookseller ; it was as though 
they were still on equal terms and had just ex- 
plained themselves to each other a little more 
clearly. 

But Miss Montague thought, as she went home- 
ward, how foolish it is to unbend with those below 
one in social station. 

And yet,” thought she, “ one can always re- 
cover at a press, by reminding them of — of their 
station. It does not matter.” 

As for Bliss Henry, he puzzled her a little. She 
smiled anon to herself. She would see him again. 
He would not be rude to a woman, she was sure. 
Indeed, she found him a ‘‘ shy man.” There was 
not the slightest doubt to her that he was a shy 
man — that was perfectly clear — and she liked shy 
men. 

That Mr. Henry is a gentleman, of course,” 
said Miss Jukes, going homeward with her brother. 


io6 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


He has a slight Oxford accent. One sees he is a 
man of culture, but — eh ” 

Yes, dear ? ” 

‘‘ He’s very outspoken. If it were not for his 
accent I should almost think him vulgar to speak so 
— before the other sex.” 

‘‘ Oh, my dear, you should hear him before his 
own.” 

I shouldn’t like to.” 

‘‘ I assure you it’s great. He says then precisely 
what he means.” 

How disgusting it must be ! ” said Miss Jukes, 
staring at the cobbled pavement. 

“ On the contrary, my dear, I find it most cleans- 
ing, edifying, purifying,” said Colonel Jukes. 

“ Dear me — why, you’re serious, George. What 
is it ? ” and her other side, her true side, I think, 
awoke. 

“ Yes, of course I am. I wanted at first to egg 
him on for fun — to stick him into Solway society 
and then wave a red rag at him, as it were, so that 
he’d cease to be a lamb and show them the bull 
he is.” 

He has ideas ? ” 

‘‘ Yes, and they’d shock Solway. In other words : 
they’d be the making of Solway if Solway would 
listen and appreciate.” 

Perhaps in a quiet way,” suggested Miss Jukes 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 107 

after some thought, “ with a man here, and a man 
there, if your belief in him is sound, he may be of 
use in Solway then — in a quiet way.” 

Yes ; that’s the way of ideas. You’re not a 
bad woman, sister ” ; he paused in the roadway. 

‘‘ What is it ? What have you forgotten ? ” said 
Miss Jukes. 

The colonel turned a strange, calm face to her, 
without any bantering sparkle. 

‘‘ I was thinking about comradeship — and having 
it — as Bliss Henry spoke just now.” 

Miss Jukes felt a little lost again and fumbled. 

“ Oh ! Do you think Miss Montague meant all 
she said ? ” 

“ Eh ? I think,” said Jukes, that Bliss Henry 
will find that out.” 

‘‘ You think he’s in love with ” 

‘‘ Ssh ! I think nothing about that. But oh, 
Miranda, if you’d only be yourself, what a woman 
you would be ! ” 


XVII 


OLWAY was watching Bliss Henry, but he 



was blissfully oblivious of that. Of course 


^ he saw the inhabitants look — they did more 
than glance ; they looked. Perhaps it might not 
be offensive to say that they stared ; but of course 
he recognised that he was a new-comer — a stranger. 
The observing of these scrutinies did not lead him 
on to consider that, as well as Solway being aware 
of a stranger, Solway was waiting for the stranger 
to commit himself, to show of what set he was, 
what he was, to write out a label, a finite label for 
Solway to take and pin on him and then be content. 

The factory girls looked at him, wondering if he 
eyer required a mistress. 

The spitters at the corner looked at him won- 
dering if ever he got drunk, and so gave an oppor- 
tunity to be helped home and blackmailed, ever 
after, with touching of caps ; no wonder that 
there was a certain roguish, waggish, vagabondish 
twinkle often visible in the eyes of these men — 
their only redeeming twinkle ; they were then 
doubtless thinking how droll it was — the way they 
lived on the moral rectitude of the place. 


io8 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


109 


Not only were they husbands to the factory girls, 
but they knew those of the shopkeepers who some- 
times found a tangle of roads outside the hotels and 
had to be conducted home and propped there with 
a “ Mum’s the word, sir — I won’t tell a living soul — 
gentleman must have his fun, but there’s people 
talk — not that I would, sir. I keeps my thumb on 
it ; and I, bless you, sir, I like to see a gentleman 
enjoying himself.” Looking at Bliss Henry, their 
outlook on life being what it was, their first thought 
was that he’d be a difficult devil to handle in 
liquor, or out of it. 

The tardy bill-payers looked at him because he 
seemed so dem sufficient to himself and yet seemed 
not in Society. Who the dooce was he ? They 
had a hideous fear that perhaps he was of a better 
set. 

But Bliss Henry did not understand these things, 
wandered about looking at the Solway that he had 
the eyes to see, supremely ignorant of the porno- 
graphic and idle sides of Solway, seeing rather the 
changing effects of day and night in the place, its 
yellow and white and cream-coloured gables and 
hurly-burly of red tiles and thatch-eaves ; seeing 
the misty or purple hills billowing round it toward 
the sky, and just setting a-going, in that scenery, 
his own puppets — not Solway’s own puppets, as I 
am doing. 


I lO 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


He strolled thus ignorantly down to his book- 
seller, with whom he had arranged to ‘‘ take tea.” 
It being Saturday evening a jostle of girls came and 
went in High Street, from Bavelaw Road to Mill 
Lane. That little portion was trod to and fro, 
sometimes slowly, sometimes in a wild rush, with a 
flutter of cheap flowers and ribbons, from seven- 
thirty till ten every Saturday evening, amidst a con- 
stant jabber of pattering talk, constant screaming 
and laughter and humming. 

Yes, there they went rushing about two and 
two, arm-in-arm, sometimes pausing to bow to- 
gether in convulsions of laughter, sometimes see- 
ing some friend of the other sex and humming to 
him, in passing, a bar of some popular ditty, 
such as ‘‘ When there isn’t a girl about, you do 
feel lonely ! ” 

Bliss Henry slipped through the throng and 
gained the bookseller’s shop to the strain of an 
Italian piano-organ playing, and girls singing, 
‘‘Stop yer ticklin’, Jock,” with a sudden sugges- 
tion in his mind that there was a French song 
“ Ne me chatouillez pas ” ; and wondering which 
was made first — but not greatly interested. He 
entered the shop, between the hanging rows of 
monthly magazines and sixpenny, paper-covered 
prints. Some people were in the shop ; so, 
having been stared at on his way hither sufli- 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


1 1 1 


ciently to be aware of the stares, and having no 
desire to emulate those whom he had felt un- 
couth, he stared at a shelf of morocco Bibles 
and Prayer Books — ^with furtive, occasional glances 
to the occupied bookseller, until he received a 
signal that he was to pass through to the back 
premises. He considered, dryly, that he had been 
staring a long while at the morocco bindings, and 
wished he had been, instead, in front of the Every- 
man bookcase. He often read the Bible, but not 
in morocco. He read it as Literature, neither as an 
ordeal of home life, nor as a state affair in the Church 
of his land. 

The bookseller followed on his heels into the 
library. 

“ You may find something to interest you,” said 
he, if you go right through to the back. I’ve 
been buying up a parson’s library. I haven’t 
looked it all through yet. Just go right through. 
I’ll be with you presently,” and he sped back to 
some affluent customer. 

Henry walked through to the dusty room beyond 
the library, the entrance to which was cloaked with 
a red curtain, and looked at the books laid out in 
rows on the floor : volumes of sermons and theo- 
logical books in a small row ; then two great rows 
of railway novels — Miss Braddon, Ouida, Guy 
Boothby, Marie Corelli. 


I 12 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


Then the curtain lifted behind him and the book- 
seller entered the twilit little lumber-room of a 
place. 

Not much money in them,” he said ; but I 
can stick them in the library. These are the things 
on which to found a circulating library in Solway. 
There’s a shelf up there — twenty Zolas, and other 
novels, Vizetelly edition.” 

Henry took one absently down and turned its 
pages ; then another ; then he noticed that on 
the end fly-leaf of the book he held were page 
numbers. What might the numbers signify ? 
He took down the others again. Yes — all were 
annotated in like manner. He turned up a page 
in a volume so noted, and on the page found 
a line beside a paragraph — a second clue. He 
read the paragraph with expressionless face ; 
turned up another page, read the marked part 
there ; then another, then another. His face 
was blank. He drew a long breath. He looked 
as though he was going to go no further with 
this occupation, put back that volume with an air 
of finality ; but suddenly he took out, almost 
fiercely, another volume, turned up a page or two — 
a marked page or two — and again blew a long 
breath. 

“ From a parson ? ” he asked. 

“ Yes — what is it ? ” asked the bookseller. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


113 


“ Oh, take any of them — take any — I expect his 
passages marked in any are as instructive as in this. 
Yes ; that one is marked.” 

The bookseller opened the volume in his hand 
and looked at the end. 

I hadn’t noticed that,” said he and began to 
consult the parson’s noted pages. Then he paused 
and looked at Henry, who stood staring on him, 
having not quite given over his occupation. 

‘‘ God ! ” said the bookseller. 

‘ The arts,’ ” said Henry quietly, ‘ are about 
to take upon their shoulders the burdens that have 
fallen from the shoulders of priests.’ ” 

‘‘ Who said that ? ” 

“ Yeats,” said Henry, but more interested in his 
thoughts than in imparting information on the 
origin of his quotation — ^just burst the name out 
coldly in reply and stood frowning. 

Zola wasn’t a priest,” suggested the bookseller 
in one of his flashes. 

More priest than artist it would appear,” said 
Henry, turning to him quickly, like one who had 
been dreaming. “ I don’t know Zola — I could 
never come near him — I never liked the odour of 
his — eh — temple ” (the bookseller smiled), “ and so 
I never went inside to hear him. Still — by the 
Lord — he can’t surely be as bad as this parson 
makes him out to be by his pencil notes. Yet — 


1 1 4 A Wilderness of Monkeys 

Pm afraid — no — Pm afraid Zola wasn’t an artist. 
As you see, few of the books this parson had are 
by artists.” 

Then Henry sat down on the broken chair that 
the bookseller was wont to sit hunched upon when 
he bent over his piles of books in that little rear 
room, sat down and put an elbow on knee, a hand 
over his eyes. 

‘‘ Take care — there’s a leg loose in that chair,” 

said Haskell. “ You’ve to balance ” 

That’s all right. Has this parson a large follow- 
ing ? ” asked Henry. 

“ He’s a great ladies’ man,” said the bookseller. 

Henry’s eyes were full of tears. He felt suffo- 
cated. The room had fallen gloomy. As late after- 
noon fell there came no shaft of sunlight streaming 
in to make even the dust-motes bright. There was 
just the old court visible from the window, the 
mullioned windows staring down dead and heavy ; 
the whitewashed wall looked drab, the eaves above 
it seemed heavy, giving darkness instead of shelter. 
Haskell turned up the gas, seeing Henry sitting there 
miserable — feeling gloomy himself. It was an old 
burner, there was no incandescent light in this little 
rearward room, and the ragged flame, most part 
blue and one edge high and the other low, made 
the little higgledy-piggledy room look more dilapi- 
dated ; and as Haskell turned up the light Henry 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


115 


saw the court without very dismal, dimly and un- 
certainly seen through the dusty window in which 
the ragged flame and the face of the bookseller were 
reflected as in a very aged mirror. The court 
seemed to Henry to take a horrid dead life, the 
blank windows opposite, under the eaves, to peer 
on them. 

‘‘ I think Fll go outside,’’ said Henry, rising 
gingerly from the rickety chair doing its last ser- 
vice out there in the room no customer saw. 
“ I feel it stuffy in here, if you’ll excuse me 
saying so.” 

‘‘ That’s all right,” said Haskell. 

Our author went out into the street to find 
with joy that the night that was beginning to fall 
was not terrible, but ethereally blue, and vast, and 
tender ; he looked up and saw stars beginning in 
the immense concave of wonder that dreams always 
over Solway. A wind was blowing down the gulch 
of the High Street, down from the hills. He took 
a great breath of it and then, sustained, turned 
again into the bookseller’s ; but he had not to go 
back to the little rearward room, though I am sure 
he could have lit it now with his renewed faith 
so that the ragged gas-flame even would have 
seemed more a ludicrous aside than one more 
touch in the making of a dusty and disagreeable 
impression. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


1 16 

The bookseller had on his hat — the two assistants 
were hastily covering the tables with their nightly 
wrappings. 

“ Coming ? ” said the bookseller ; and they went 
home together. 


XVIII 


T he window was open to the night with a 
tree rustling in it and a stream talking 
quietly through it, that sound entering 
with more insistent peace as the night grew quieter. 
A scent of roses came in, and there was no feeling 
of slackness or weakness despite all the tushery 
poets ” have babbled about roses in ladies’ breasts 
and hair. 

Henry looked out and saw the roses in the garden 
and quoted from Poe : 

“ . . . while the moon 
Fell on the upturned faces of the roses, 


Fell on the upturned faces of these roses 
That gave out, in return for the love-light. 
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death — 
Fell on the upturned faces of these roses 
That smiled and died in this parterre . . . 


Upon the upturned faces of a thousand 
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden ! ’’ 


He quoted so, in snatches, just as he recalled the 
poem, and then strayed round the white room 

117 


1 1 8 A Wilderness of Monkeys 

that this bookseller had made his individual own, 
and saw a volume of Lang’s Aucassin and Nicolette^ 
and opened it and turned smiling, as to a memory 
of old summers with their apple blossom, turned to a 
passage and read here and there, read in the preface 
too, thinking how, despite Mr. Lang’s elderly and 
exquisitely scholarly regret that the public will have 
prefaces, he had yet given out much beauty in pre- 
faces here and there. He read with pleasure Lang’s 
quotation (or misquotation and perhaps improve- 
ment) of a stanza from Thackeray’s Old Lamf : 

“ When I was young as you are young, 

When lutes were touched and songs were sung, 

And love-lamps in the window hung.” 

The bookseller sat with his head resting on the 
back of his easy chair, feeling that Bliss Henry was 
happy. Then Henry looked to the piano. 

You play ? ” he asked. 

‘‘ If you wish.” 

‘‘ I do wish,” said Henry most heartily. The 
music, he thought, might heal him of the parson. 

The bookseller rose and swung slowly to the 
piano. 

‘‘ I have a friend you must meet,” he said. “ He 
plays as I can’t play. Odd — I have another friend,” 
he delayed at the piano to tell of his friends brought 
to mind then. “ He has left Solway long ago. He 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 1 1 9 

is a composer, you must have heard of him. He 
comes down here now and then — leaves Glasgow 
and comes back here without any swagger, and we 
talk again just as before. He says a piano to him is 
just an aid — that he hears a whole orchestra ; when 
he talks of music he may go over to the piano — 
half sit down in an off-hand way, and more in- 
dicate than play ; that’s about all you could call 
it ; and then he says : ‘ A piano is of no great use. 
It just helps.’ The other man — the man I began 
about — goes to the instrument and as he sits down 
he changes somehow. His face, his figure — the 
whole man changes. It’s a thing one can never 
forget. He doesn’t know himself. He couldn’t do 
it if he tried. He goes to the piano as if it were 
an altar.” 

He played this ; he played that. He played 
Leoncavallo, Dvorak, Beethoven. He played won- 
drously. Henry sat gazing out on the wavering 
trees and the moonlit garden, seeing the outside 
world splendid and ghostly, like the land of faery, 
dazzled by the light in the room. 

‘‘ Thanks,” he said, after a playing. 

The bookseller went on ; and then nebulous 
thoughts were in Bliss Henry’s mind : they moved 
and gathered to some parts of the music, to fall 
apart again. He was hardly aware that he was 
thinking of a woman, a girl, that he had known for 


120 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


years quite quietly without ever thinking how well 
he did know her. She came to him then, but not 
visualised. There was no picture of her flung 
vivaciously before him to make his heart leap — 
only he remembered her, and poignantly too, I 
think ; but he did not know how deeply he was 
thinking of her ! She was just with him then — 
but he did not want her ; or is it so he did not 
want her ? Colonel Jukes might have called such a 
state, whether the man living in it was aware of 
living in it, or unaware, a sentimental state. But 
we have thrashed that out — a little. 

There was no longing, no fever of love ’’ ; so 
he did not know — for down the years the symptoms 
of love have been given as such — so he did not 
know — that he was in love. 


XIX 


I N the morning not May but Mrs. Sturge in 
person brought in his breakfast. He had 
just strayed into his sitting-room from the 
little bedroom when she tapped and entered with 
a swirl, a rush. He felt the swirl and the rush as 
warning of some explosion ; and then, remember- 
ing how people said he was imaginative, informed 
himself that there was nothing in the wind at 
all, no explosion heralded so. But of course 
there was ; men who are informed that they are 
this, that, and the other — well, they are generally 
right ! 

He was consoling himself with the sunlight 
streaming through the window on the white table- 
cloth, the wind blowing the white curtains of the 
long, low window, when the first volley was 
fired. 

Pm an honest woman ! ” cried Mrs. Sturge, 
striking an attitude of belligerent virtue, and her 
whole face hard with vinegary rectitude. 

Henry looked at her quietly and bowed. 

Pm as straight as the day. Fair with me and 
Pm fair with you,” she cried. 

121 


122 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


Henry frowned and stared — and sat down and 
spread his serviette. 

Then her manner changed. 

“ In my house, too ! Oh, in my house ! ’’ cried 
Mrs. Sturge. 

“ Something has troubled you this beautiful 
morning ? ” hazarded Bliss Henry, tapping his 

egg- 

“ What would my mother say ! ” cried Mrs. 
Sturge. ‘‘ She was the kind of woman that Fd 
rather die than let her know of such a thing. 
Trouble ! Yes ; trouble is the word for it. That 
girl of mine — oh, the sly slut ! Well, I’m not sur- 
prised ; I always suspected her of being a bad one, 
with her select ways.” 

“ Run away has she ? ” 

‘‘ Run away ! God forgive me that I should say 
it to a man, but she’s had a baby.” 

What ! A baby, Mrs. Sturge ! When ? I — 
eh ” 

I’ve just found it out — last night I found it 
out, and not a wink could I sleep all night for 
thinking of the sly puss and all the gentlemen, one 
time and another, that has been here with me. Not 
that I hold with reading private letters. I once 
had a girl that I caught reading letters in this house 
— reading them deliberately. I gave her the fright 
of her life. I knew something about her, you see. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


123 


I got it quite by accident ; and it shows how the 
Lord’s ways go. I found a letter, found it lying on 
the floor, she had dropped it, you see ; and I lifted 
it and began reading it to see what it was, not going 
ferreting about anything. It was sheer accident. 
I just read a bit, and then I saw the letter wasn’t 
one of mine I had dropped, but hers. And what 
was in that letter made me that ashamed I couldn’t 
give it to her. I just burnt it. But when one day 
she up and gave me some impudence and made 
some remarks about my folks, I let her have a bit 
back. That’s the other girl I’m talking about. 
And here with this girl now — I can’t tell you how 
I found out — it’s too disgusting, I assure you, for 
an honest. God-fearing woman. But what I said 
to myself was : ‘ It might have been anybody. A 
girl like that would blame anybody. I’m glad 
my dear husband is dead and gone or maybe 
she’d have ’ Oh, Mr. Henry, she’d say any- 

thing, that sly puss. I says : Mt might be this 
friction author that’s with me now. If she did 
the like again she might blame him as soon as 
another.’ ” 

Henry gave a sigh and said : 

“ It really wouldn’t matter who was blamed, as 
you say, if the man was innocent. Quite candidly, 
I may say that May has no attractions for me, 
physical or mental. All I have observed about her 


124 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


is that she has very short arms, and a very rolling 
eye, and that when one does not smile at her she 
sets the dishes with a clatter and makes a deal of 
noise.” Mrs. Sturge drew up a little, her hands 
crossed ; her lips came together. “ And really, 
Mrs. Sturge, I think Pd rather not hear about the 
immoralities of your servants.” 

Mrs. Sturge went white and then stood staring 
at Bliss Henry, giving him what she would doubtless 
call a penetrating glance. He remarked it and 
thought it insolent and disgusting and rudely 
searching. Damn the woman — and damn Sol- 
way ! 

‘‘ I beg your pardon, Mr. Henry,” she said sud- 
denly as he gave back her stare ; his hand, which 
had been resting on the table, clenched and un- 
clenched — a sign she understood, it being primitive. 
‘‘ Pm so upset with it all I had to tell you, seeing 
you are such a fine gentleman.” At that she re- 
tired. 

“ The harridan ! ” he thought. I expect she’s 
worse than May.” 

But it appears that one could pick and choose 
little in the mass of Solway. 

Oh, Solway ! And this was the place in which he 
was to find peace ! This was the place in which 
he was to write a charming romance ! He knew 
now that his puppets would never move ! The 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


125 


‘‘ local colour ” was all right, changeful skies, 
mutable moors, fields lying in unintentional design 
of brown and green in the valley ; but the puppets 
would not move. After an insipid breakfast that 
morning he felt that they were dead, that they had 
stuck. And he knew that his moral landlady, who 
had spoiled his breakfast, had killed them. The 
air of the house told him that he would have 
difficulty in getting life into them again — he felt 
that they were dead indeed. It was a disastrous 
state of affairs. 

Then hope returned, a frail hope. 

He would go out and tramp on the moors, note- 
book in pocket lest, up there, in the clear air, his 
puppets came to life again and talked ; he would 
then have the wherewithal to note their sayings and 
doings. But he didn’t think they would. 

He thrust a clean handkerchief in his sleeve, took 
his stick and hat from the sofa — it was his way to 
toss them there instead of leaving them in the 
hall. 

And then suddenly the church bells broke out 
through Solway, making a strange buzzing in the 
room. He looked round to find the cause of that 
unpleasant sound, traced it to a flower-vase. At 
every leap of the church bells the flower-vase gave 
a discordant buzz. Was it cracked ? He lifted it 
and examined it. No ; it was all right. He put it 


126 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


down again, wondering. And then he found that 
the vase did not buzz again. 

Um ! ’’ he thought, “ it must have been the 
way you took the sound. You seem all right, after 
all.” 

He glanced out of the window to see if there was 
much crowd of church-goers, for somehow he 
always imagined that people with frock-coats and 
high hats and satin dresses going to church in 
Solway, on beautiful sunny mornings when the 
Border hills were an amazing purple all round the 
little town, seemed to be annoyed at sight of a 
young man in leggings, and with a rough stick, 
going up High Street toward the sky, instead of 
down Mill Lane or along the Carlisle Road (as the 
case might be), to church or chapel. 

He saw Mrs. Sturge sail forth. 

A wind blew in at the window and he decided to 
go out, not to wait till the church bells had stopped. 
After what he had heard he did not wish to see May 
that morning, and she would be up soon to arrange 
his room. He felt a pity for her. Mrs. Sturge had 
talked so loudly that he feared May had heard. 
If the poor sinful girl had heard she might feel 
ashamed. 

He went slowly downstairs, feeling an unpleasant 
atmosphere around him, nearly fell over a slop-pail 
at the door of the room below his, and, just as he 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


127 


did not, heard a burst of laughter — May’s — and her 
gleeful voice crying : “ Oh, sir ! What would 

missus say if she saw us ? ” Evidently May was all 
right. 

He went out and walked briskly up High Street. 
The bells ceased as he came to the last house ; and 
beyond lay only the road, winding on the moors. 
All the way up he had been haunted by a feeling 
that his puppets were dead. Now he felt suddenly 
that they were not dead. But he, he had lost some- 
thing, lacking which he could not wheedle them into 
acting or talking any more. He would be a fiasco, 
a failure ; his romance would never be written, 
that romance that was to bring joy and beauty to 
man ; he would be a failure, a fiasco ; and mean- 
while people would go on letting rooms, and going 
to church, and fornicating, and annotating indelicate 
passages in inartistic books ; reading books that 
suggested loathsome things ; banning others that 
suggested the possibility that men had souls as well 
as bodies, and adding to their ban (those of them 
who were dishonest as well as disgusting and fond 
of the disgusting) some mean phrase to the effect 
that we all know that when a man objects strongly 
to something he feels its lure strongly. Bliss 
Henry knew all that talk. What a tangle ! 

He turned round on the hill-crest, the moor be- 
yond hazy with coming rain, and looked down on 


128 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


Solway — place of peace ! — and said : ‘‘To hell 
with you ! ” 

He was to say it with much more feeling ere he 
was done with it, and able to ignore it. 


XX 



HE rain poured down, but here on the high 


land the rain was a joyous event. On he 


tramped, the collar of his waterproof coat 
up under his ears, his head raised, his mouth closed, 
he drawing great breaths through his nostrils. The 
rain beat on him. The roadway was deep in mud, 
but he kept to the road, for the grassy verges were 
all sodden. Round the little spring, where he had 
often paused to drink in summer, was a pool of 
dancing water ; for the spring lay in a hollow and 
the moors were draining down that way. 

He watched the rain charging across the moor, 
now like lances, now a white, swirling mist ; and 
he was very happy. Whether in sun or rain he was 
always happy up here. He thought of that girl 
friend in London. He had written to her of the 
moor in summer and had sent her a copy of the 
fragment he had chanted here before. He thought 
she would like to be here in rain as well as in sun. 

He had met her once on Chelsea embankment, 
umbrellaless and radiant, her cloak-collar snuggled 
under her chin, her dark tresses wet ; she tilted a 
little against the wind and smiling into it. It had 
I 129 


130 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


cheered him to see her. He must tell her of the 
lances of the rain, the white mists driving in the 
cloven glens and scudding across the open moors. 
He turned about and went squelching back to 
Solway to change his clothes, rub down, relish tea 
as only such a day’s tramp can make one relish that 
poison, and then get on with his work — freshly, if 
not with spontaneity. 


XXI 


M ay came blithely and quietly into Bliss 
Henry’s sitting-room and went down on 
her knees before his grate, her head a 
little on the side listening to his movements in 
the adjoining room. 

Presently he walked in from his bedroom, he 
slightly irascible, beneath his quiet exterior. 

He had had a feeling ever since that hideous 
Sunday morning of something around him pre- 
venting him from doing anything that he wanted 
to do. He had called himself lazy. He had even 
told himself that he was already a failure. His 
first book had been a success. So also his second. 
Every month now some magazine had his name on 
a headline as a special attraction, but — there was 
the but.” 

He had come down to Solway, as it were with a 
boxful of puppets, knowing just what he wanted 
them to do. He had laid them all out, stood them 
all up, set them all a-going with, in his mind, the 
complete whole of their play; and behold, at the 
end of the first act, when all was going well, some- 
thing went wrong with the curtain. He could not 
raise it again. 

131 


132 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


He tried to hearten himself by remembering 
what difficulties he had had at first — to get the 
puppets set out. But he could not hearten himself. 
Ever since that hideous Sunday his work had been 
at a standstill. Everything he had written he had 
destroyed. He blamed Mrs. Sturge. She had just 
flung a pailful of hypocrisy and sordid parlour-maid 
underworld of lust over his puppets and then left 
him. She had left a blight on him. The whole 
house was inimical to him, the atmosphere atrophy- 
ing. He came out to his sitting-room and saw May 
before the grate. 

No, he could not say she was attractive. She had 
a heavy neck, he noticed then, on which the profuse 
hair hung in a net. She was short, square. Her 
complexion was pink and white. She had perfect 
teeth and short, dangling arms, and large breasts 
that bobbed above constricting stays. He had 
wondered once or twice if May knew that her 
mistress had told him that distressful bit of her 
history. After that Sunday he had felt May, when 
Mrs. Sturge was at home, rather dejected ; our 
sensitive author felt her dejection, or whatever it 
was, every time she came into his room. And yet it 
did not seem like real dejection. It did not awaken 
sympathy — rather made him irritable ; and he was 
not sensible enough to call himself a fool for being 
upset by a boarding-house drudge. He had the 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


133 


democratic as well as the aloof spirit of most 
poetical minds. One good change, to his mind, was 
that she was very little inclined now to roll her 
great eyes as she attended on him. He wondered 
why the change had come, exactly. When Mrs. 
Sturge was out May’s laugh often rang on the 
stairs. But as the days passed she regained her 
bouncing manner, even when Mrs. Sturge was at 
home. 

This morning she looked up and favoured Henry 
with that familiar roll of eye, as if she felt that she 
had something in common with him. He had 
known maids overawed by his books and prints. 
May seemed not at all overawed. Not that he 
desired to overawe ; but he wondered what 
thoughts this girl had, as we wonder of a dog or a 
cat that comes about us. 

He looked at her again and saw that she was 
really very pink and white and that her eye had 
what the robust worldly call, with a note of admira- 
tion, the come-hither ” in it. He could conceive 
a stable-boy being enamoured of her square, fleshly 
plumpness. Also, it struck him that if she were 
garishly dressed she would be like the women one 
sees in London restaurants smoking cigarettes and 
looking as though they were waiting for a friend. 
She looked squarely round and ogled him. He 
stared at her, deep in her eyes, his face still with 


134 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


that look as of trying not to show his inner deep 
distress at the cessation of his capacity to make his 
puppets move. 

“ Oh ! ” she cried and stared. Then again, Oh, 
don’t look at me like that. You make me feel 
ashamed ! ” 

And then it struck him that men were truly pigs. 
He made her feel ashamed ! And there were men, 
it struck him, who, at such a roll of eye, marked 
her for their prey. He was sorry that he was a man. 
He regretted sex. 

But, May still before him there, he turned from 
his nebulous philosophy to thought of what Mrs. 
Sturge had told him ; also he thought of how, on 
the very day that he had heard that tale, he had 
heard her amorous voice in the room below what 
time the slop-pail and brooms waited on the land- 
ing. 

In the manner of a god stooping to earth to 
aid he said : 

‘‘ All right — all right ! Don’t you do any- 
thing to be ashamed of and then you’ll be all 
right.” 

He thought of the hypocrisy of the world. Mrs. 
Sturge had said that she had heard by accident that 
someone who was keeping the child had been want- 
ing more money. Well ! May could not have 
much money here, to send on to wherever the 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


135 


child was housed. He put his hand in his pocket and 
encountered a sovereign. 

“ Here,” he said, ‘‘ take this.” 

‘‘ Whatever for, sir ? ” 

‘‘ Oh — that’s all right. The past is past. Don’t 
repeat it ; but don’t forget it unless you’ve learnt 
its lesson. You need the money, I’ve no doubt. 
You take that. Any time you really need money 
to help you — ^you understand — come to me. I’ll 
help you as far as I can. The ones that hurt are 

not the ones that help ” he stuck — feeling that 

that was perhaps cruel, and he had been trying to 
handle the subject delicately, lest the poor girl 
might feel pained. He had heard that even an un- 
acknowledged mother has sometimes an intense 
primitive hunger for the skulking, unnamed man 
that is father of her child. But a sudden shadow 
on her face, as of some selfish thought, made him 
call himself a fool. 

‘‘ Remember,” he said ; ‘‘ it’s for the baby.” 

Who told you ? ” she cried, whirling about and 
looking up on him, one fore-foot raised half-way 
toward her breast. 

“ That’s all right,” he said. 

She gave him an appealing look and a gesture that 
she felt, the moment it was made, had no effect on 
this strange man. 

She burst into tears. 


136 A Wilderness of Monkeys 


“ I am sad,” she cried ; “ I try not to show it, 
but oh, I am sad ! The baby is a cripple, too.” 

‘^Oh! Oh, I am sorry.” 

“ Yes, a cripple. I did all I could to stop it 
and — the doctor knew when it was born. He did 
round on me. ‘ You’ve made the child a cripple 
for life,’ he said. Oh, he did round on me ! I’ve 
suffered.” 

An immense horror took Bliss Henry. He had 
heard of illegitimacy. But he had never pondered 
it. He had a look beneath now, as it were. A door 
opened into a sordid, selfish world of passion. 

May cried again, a fresh, piteous outburst. 

‘‘ I’m fond of the babe,” she said. 

He could not understand her. 

“ You tried to ! ” he stuck. 

“ Yes — I did my best — and it’s a cripple. Oh, 
the doctor did round on me ! I’ve had a terrible 
lot of suffering through it all. I wish it could die ! 
I wish it could die ! ” 

For the first time in his life Bliss Henry play- 
acted. A hideous thought came to his mind, 
wakened by a look on the girl’s face. He did not 
pause to question then if it was only his imagina- 
tion that made him read her face so. He had a 
thought, a horrific thought, to him. Perhaps be- 
cause he felt it so horrific he believed that he had 
read her expression rightly. He acted on the 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


137 


thought. It was the last speech to expect from 
Bliss Henry. It was not Bliss Henry who spoke. 

I suppose,” said he quietly, “ that sometimes 

if a child is boarded out — eh Is the baby 

boarded out ? ” 

“ Yes,” and that look on her face again. 

I suppose sometimes children — like that — 
boarded out — do die ? ” 

‘‘ I couldn’t manage that, sir — the woman that 
has her couldn’t do that, I know. But I’m afraid 
to take her away. I didn’t send on money for 
some time and she wrote to my folks at home and 
they paid up for me and wrote me a terrible letter. 
So now — now — if I took it away from her and gave 
it to a woman I’ve heard of since — if anything hap- 
pened they’d maybe suspect.” 

“ What ? ” cried Henry. “ It is so then — ^you’d 

have it killed for you — and you say you ” he 

stuck again. 

Well, sir ! ” she spread out her plump hands, 
‘‘ the poor little thing, sir — it’s a cripple — a poor 
little cripple.” 

Henry stood looking at her and decided that the 
evil of the world has neither memory nor imagina- 
tion. He was to return to that thought later and 
know how without memory and imagination there 
is no love. He turned away toward the window, 
somewhat stunned and, in that mood, somewhat 


138 A Wilderness of Monkeys 


stunned, in an absent fashion saw his paper lying 
on the table beside the ink, paper on which nothing 
had been written for days ; or, if aught had been 
written, it had been written only to destroy. 

Here perhaps was life — the thing there, pink and 
white and square, kneeling on the floor, was giving 
him real life. Perhaps, he deeply thought, hardly 
aware of the thought, it was the real life round 
him that prevented him being able to make his 
puppets move in their make-believe. But was it 
real life ? It seemed like nightmare. Was it life ? 
Was it life ! 

A touch on his shoulder recalled him. He turned, 
and May was at his side. 

“You won’t tell anyone, sir ? ” 

“ Tell ! I ! After what I’ve said to you ? Of 
course not.” 

“ Thank you.” Then suddenly she smiled in his 
face, slipped a hand tentatively on to his shoulder — 
shining tears stood in her come-hither eyes. “ Tell 
me how you knew,” she said. “ Who told you — 
who told you ? You can kiss me if you tell me 
that.” 

Kiss her ! 

He stared in horror ; but his own self he hid 
quite, dully, horrified. 

“ Why, your mistress told me, if you want to 
know,” he said in a hollow voice, answering her in 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


139 


as matter-of-fact a way as he could, since he talked 
at all to her ; but he backed from her and looked 
with horror on her. She, transfixed, stared on him. 
Yet it was not at the knowledge of the source of 
his information she looked so, with something of 
horror too. 

‘‘ Oh, Christ ! Oh, Christ ! ” she said. “ Oh, 
for God’s sake don’t look at me like that ! You 
make me feel — oh — ^you make me feel ashamed ! ” 

She bent her head and, yes, assuredly her face 
was crimson, for some reason ; then she staggered 
from the room, squat, and deformed in his eyes. 


XXII 


B liss henry dosed his inkbottle and rose 
and regarded the litter of his table a mo- 
ment. Then, angrily, he gathered together 
the scattered journals and stepped to his cupboard 
and put them away on the floor there. 

He felt as if, willy-nilly, he was plunged into the 
midst of a world with which he had nothing in 
common. He walked to and fro in his room, hands 
in pockets, brow furrowed, distressed. 

“ I have not loved the world, nor the world me,” 
he quoted, 

“ I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed 
To its frivolities a patient knee.” 

He walked to and fro feeling very bitter. He 
did not want to be bitter. 

Henry’s memory went racketing through many 
illogical futilities of argument heard in the past. 
Cant phrases of privately embittered people who 
had joined this or that public movement, as young 
jilted boys often join the army, echoed in his ears; 
Babylonian incoherencies that, if it be granted 
that the talkers possessed brains, might more 
accurately be called dishonesties, so obviously dis- 

140 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 141 

honest, shifting from base to base; cries po and 
con on matters assumedly religious and civic, which 
were really private snarls of people who had not 
got something they wanted (a managership, or a 
baby) echoed in his ears. But at the moment, 
because of his own private troubles, he was not able 
to pity these poor perverted people; he remem- 
bered them all with anger. 

“ I have not loved the world, nor the world me.” 

And then he felt immensely sorry for himself 
that, loving the world as he did, its simian in- 
habitants should make him, from their point of 
view, ‘‘a bitter man,” he whose heart was really 
bubbling with joy, like a spring. 

Then his eye caught sight of a Spectator and a 
Nation lying on the table and he spurned them 
into his waste-paper basket. 

Of course it was not the journals that irritated 
him. It was May, the serving-maid ; Mrs. Sturge, 
the landlady ; the editor of a paper who had 
promised to pay on the 3rd, and it was now the 
30th — and also his puppets would not move. Why 
should there be such hideous people in the world 
when a mere man. Bliss Henry to wit, could create 
on paper, with a pen, absolutely engaging women 
who were always beautiful, newly washed, newly 
coiffed ; and delightful, strong, tender men who 
loved the beautiful women but felt unworthy and 


142 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


had at last to be told hy the heroine gently that 
they were the dearest, most wonderful men in the 
world ? I wonder if there was anything else wrong 
with Bliss Henry ? He wished he might meet 
someone with whom he could have a pacific but 
inspiring talk about life and books. 

‘‘ Oh, pshaw ! ” he said. 

He gathered together the strayed sheets of his 
writing-paper and put them in their drawer ; 
gathered together the scattered volumes and ranged 
them in their places on the shelves and went out 
for the day, walked smartly up High Street, left 
behind, with joy, the last cottages ; came to the 
open moor. 

He walked with downcast head staring at the 
familiar grey dust and blue gleam of the roadway. 
His puppets, as he went, stirred a little ; he thought 
they were almost beginning to act — and then he 
found himself thinking, willy-nilly, of the serving- 
maid’s outlook on life, of Mrs. Sturge’s outlook on 
life, of — he checked himself ; he banished his 
thoughts wholly, seeing they were determined to 
be gloomy, depressed ones. He passed on, walking 
well, across the moor to the foot of Bavelaw hills ; 
went on through the woods where streams trickled, 
and in their broken banks mica shone in flakes ; and 
the woods were all a-swim with wavering light and 
leaves. And so on he went to the open slopes, where 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


H3 


only sheep broke the stillness and where were low 
tombstones half hid in grass, and fallen grass-hid 
walls, and one stone only erect, an Iona cross, with 
the mystic letters I.H.S., giving thought of the 
world’s greatest dreamer and of all these ages, of 
time, eternity, and a dreamer’s peace ; and the 
sheep bleating all around, and the august mountain 
towering behind with a scarf of mist swinging 
alonging its face. And he threw himself down in 
the heather and said : 

“ Oh, my God ; my God ; it is good to be 
home ! ” 


XXIII 


A fter a long, long rest he felt better, less 
lonely. Something of solace had come to 
- his heart. Perhaps he had been really long- 
ing for kinship, for a meeting with someone who 
looked on the world as he did — and saw it a bright, 
glittering, peaceful and yet invigorating world of 
blue china and roses and etchings and bicycle rides 
on long white roads, with a cold tub in the jolly 
morning and incense of tobacco-smoke at twilight 
to the stars — and fresh sleep at night with the 
windows open ! 

He stretched himself and sat up and saw the 
curlews flying, and heard them, and chanted his 
broken fragment of an epitaph or whatever it was : 

“ I would go back to my own loved hills 
When I am dying, 

And die to the old, old voice of rills 
Where birds are flying — 

Flying and crying over the hills.” 


144 


XXIV 


I N spite of the glory of the hills there was 
no work for Bliss Henry that evening. He 
had healed himself ; but just healed and 
no more; he had no reserve of peace and joy 
with which to turn to his puppets and make them 
live. 

He tried again on the morrow to get them a- 
moving and alive, but could not. 

The day without veered and changed, spells of 
thin sunshine suddenly ended in quick, deepening 
shadow, bursts of rain ; and then came the sun 
again. 

He went out and tramped over the hills 
above Solway, smiting the thistles with his stick. 
As a rule he loved to feel the rain on his face, a 
swirling wind coming now from this quarter, now 
from that, unexpected and stimulating. To-day 
he found the ways muddy, difficult to walk on. 
The wet seemed to go into his bones and chill in- 
stead of refreshing him. The intervening spells 
of sunlight seemed pallid, ill. In the hedges a bird 
gave a frail, disconsolate twitter — no song. He 
had fled from Solway to the hills for peace, but he 

K 145 


o A Wilderness of Monkeys 

had, after all, just brought his pitiable condition 
with him. But he stuck to it manfully, tramped all 
the way to Currie and had lunch there at the little 
hostelry that stood grey in the high moors, with 
bent trees by it and a wind crying in its quaint 
chimneys. Then he began the return tramp ; but 
the whole rolling chaos of hills spoke of sodden 
misery to him. 

“ I shall go down to Haskell’s,’’ he thought, 
and I shall say : ‘ Haskell, to save my immortal 
soul from torment, also to make me fit to work 
again, play to me, give me again, in music, some 
peace.’ ” 

He went down the village street with the swing — 
left, right — of a man who has travelled far, splashed 
with mud above his knees. It was about sunset ; the 
rain had taken off and a glow filled the west, and 
red fires banked up there in a wet gorgeousness. 
The High Street was deserted ; one could hear 
the gutters whispering. The shops were all lit, 
but hardly anyone was abroad. 

He went home and tramped up to his room and 
changed his soaked clothes for dry. 

If he had only lain down to rest the events that 
followed might not have followed ; but he did 
not lie down to rest. He had made up his agonised 
mind to go to the bookseller and say : ‘‘For God’s 
sake play to me. I am generally strong and quiet. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


H7 


To-night I am in torture. It is a filthy world, a 
shambles, a tangle of hypocrisies and maze of 
filthinesses and their veils, just a great choking 
tangle. Play, and give me back the capacity to be 
quiet and to go on with joy.” 

So he dressed again and went forth and took his 
way to the bookseller’s. The pavements were all 
white and dry in the wind, though still the gutters 
trickled from the day’s rain. The street lamps 
were being lit, one by one twinkling to life, the lamp- 
lighter coming plodding down the street sheltering 
his light as best he could — then spark ! another lamp 
lit and fluttering. 

‘‘ Hail, Prometheus ! ” Bliss Henry murmured as 
he passed the lamplighter, and the lamplighter gave 
him an odd, sidewise glance and then looked back 
on him. 

‘‘ Talking to himself,” he said ; been drinking 
maybe.” 

When Henry arrived at the shop it was to find 
that the bookseller was gone for two days to over- 
haul a library somewhere. 

‘‘ Another hideous parson’s, I suppose,” he con- 
jectured miserably. 

Henry was evidently not sufficient for himself. 
He had buoyed himself up with the hope of the 
bookseller being there, perhaps on the point of 
leaving for home ; but that he would be absent he 


148 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


had not for a moment expected. The place seemed 
dead. He heard a far-off rumble of a cart, tappings 
of feet went by in the High Street and sounded as 
if they were far off, as if his ears were muffled — as 
if either he did not really exist or else Solway did 
not. 

The girl assistant gave a winsome, sympathetic 
smile as he took the blow. Very clearly he adver- 
tised upon his face that he had come upon a dis- 
appointment. 

I shall tell him you called,” she said, “ whenever 
he comes back to-morrow.” 

To-morrow ! But his self-centred soul — or to be 
fair to him — his soul that had been thrust back on 
itself — felt that to-morrow was ages away, and to- 
day had been an age — an age he could not have 
lived through had he not, all through it, had the 
hope of a little music at the end, a sop, perhaps a 
peace. He passed out and ran into the arms of 
Jukes. 

‘‘ Ah, the very man I was thinking of. I say — 
come home with me — my sister is away seeing some 
relatives and Fm alone.” 

Something said : “ No — don’t go. Go home. 
Go to bed. Rest. Say to yourself now : ‘ Solway 
is a lie,’ and then go to sleep. In the morning you 
will waken to the full realisation of the truth of 
your own world — and that without having any sop 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


149 


of music — all, as it were, off your own bat. Go 
home quietly, and go to bed and rest.” 

Come along, dreamer,” said Jukes. 

And so Henry went along. 


XXV 


B liss henry was miserable. He did all he 
could to cheer up, to look as though he had 
nothing on his mind, to show a smiling face 
and debonair manner to Colonel Jukes and Mr. 
Drummond — a friend of Jukes’s who dropped in 
shortly after their arrival. 

Dinner freshened him in a way, but only in the 
“ feed the brute ” manner, if I may put it so. He 
could not get ease. He had to jog himself to join 
in the conversation, for though he knew what to 
say on the various subjects discussed from the ox- 
tail soup to the cheese and celery he, as it were, 
heard himself talking, knew he was talking quite 
correctly, but wondered what on earth made people 
talk at all about politics and travel and all the rest 
of it, when around one were brutes, just brutes ; 
and possibly even the most debonair people around 
one were just brutes too, with a veneer on. Kipling’s 
horrid lines about the colonel’s lady and Judy 
O’Grady being sisters under their skins, came into 
his head. 

In that odd way that makes one sometimes sus- 
pect telepathy to have been at work, that very 
150 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 15 1 

phrase was quoted by Mr. Drummond at close of 
one of Colonel Jukes’s stories of India a little later. 

Henry roused himself somewhat then. 

“ Yes,” he said softly ; “ perhaps the colonel’s 
lady and Judy O’Grady may be so ; but perhaps, 
again, there are Judy O’Gradys not a bit like the 
colonel’s ladies — and,” he added, smiling, ‘‘ also 
here and there colonels’ ladies not a bit like Judy 
O’Gradys.” 

Drummond stared. He evidently did not under- 
stand. 

Jukes glittered. If he had thought a little he 
might have understood. He had in him the power 
to understand. But his excessive fondness for 
“ pulling a man’s leg,” for “ gently roasting ” some- 
one, for having a fellow on ” was uppermost. He 
suggested a removal to round the fire, and filled up 
two glasses of whisky and soda which he put on a 
table beside his guests. Jukes did not take liquor 
himself because, as he remarked, it ‘‘ played the 
dickens with his side,” but he kept a fair cellar for 
his friends. 

“ That remark of yours needs explaining,” he 
suggested. ‘‘ Don’t you think so, Drummond ? ” 

‘‘ Well — I confess I don’t quite understand,” said 
Drummond, elevating his brows and looking blankly 
left and right. 

Henry wanted to say : Then damn you, I’m 


152 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


afraid I can’t explain,” but he had trained himself, 
rightly or wrongly, to be always polite when he was 
a guest — just as also he was always polite when he 
was a host — there are various courtesies to observe 
in life. 

“ Oh,” he said, and spread a hand in a slack 
gesture, “ I don’t know that it’s worth going 
over.” 

The end of the gesture brought his hand to the 
table, and he took up the glass and sat sipping while 
Drummond broke new ground with some local topic 
which Henry did not understand, and thrashed it 
out with Jukes. Henry was rather relieved. A little 
amused, he observed Jukes’s endeavour to make the 
conversation general. But he was quite satisfied 
that it was not. He put down his glass and Jukes 
replenished it. He sat frowning and biting his 
upper lip. Drummond rose and paced the floor, in 
a way he had, as though he wearied of sitting ; then 
stood swaying with his back to the fire and his hands 
behind him — then edged to one side of the hearth 
and leant against the mantelpiece. 

A word on this Drummond. 

He quite prided himself on being a Peace-maker. 
If he heard that two men had “ quarrelled ” he 
immediately set out to bring them together, thus 
often aiding some rogue of whose roguery a simpler 
soul had grown weary at last — like a worm that 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


153 


turned. He often managed to make the worm re- 
turn, and so gave the rogue another chance. It 
made him feel happy to do things like that. 

It suddenly occurred to him that he had been 
taking up the conversation and talking about 
matters that a stranger would scarce understand. 

Have you been long in Solway, Mr. — eh — 
Henry ? ” he asked. 

No ; not very long,” said Henry. 

‘‘ Here on holiday ? ” chanted Drummond, and 
took his glass from the table, sipped, and set it on 
the mantelpiece. 

Mr. Henry is here,” explained Jukes, “ to take 
notes — a chiel amang us takin’ notes, I expect.” 
‘‘Oh? Eh?” 

“ Mr. Henry is an author. You know the 
name ” 

Drummond bowed and looked quickly round to 
see that he was not keeping the firelight from 
Henry. 

“ Yes ; certainly,” he said. “ I was not aware 
that I was having the pleasure of talking to the Mr. 
Henry — an author.” 

“ You needn’t kow-tow to him,” said Jukes. 
“ He’s not that sort of man. Are you, eh ? ” 

Jukes’s tone seemed sweet to Henry. He was glad 
that Jukes understood the unassuming bit of him. 
He was glad that Jukes felt that he could speak thus. 


154 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


No,” he said, smiling ; an author is just a 
man like any other man, I fancy.” Then he 
laughed. Not that the colonel’s lady and Judy 
O’Grady are sisters under their skins,” he added. 

Jukes had a fresh smile. He had at first hoped to 
see Henry “ catch the needle,” as he phrased it. 
Now it would appear that Henry was going to pull 
Drummond’s leg gently. Well — that would do as 
well. He cared little who was bantered, but he 
dearly loved banter. 

Where are you living ? ” asked Drummond. 

Everywhere, I think,” said Henry. ‘‘ I began 
at ‘ The Gamekeeper,’ and then went to rooms at 
the top of High Street in one of the old houses. 
Now I’m just at the bend of High Street, with a 
view of the moors above and fields below.” 

Drummond stared. 

“ And comfortable at last, I hope ? ” said Drum- 
mond, and lifted his glass and looked at the slight 
fluting on it. 

Well, the view is all right,” said Henry, and 
lifted his glass and looked at the slight fluting on it. 
“ I would move to-morrow if the view was not so 
friendly,” he set his glass down again. ‘‘ I can see 
the top rolls of moor and the crest of hills beyond 
by looking up the street. Looking down I can see 
the fields and one or two twists of river. And the 
street — oh, the street is rich with the drollest fore- 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


155 


shortening of people under the eaves — tops of hats 
with feet protruding under them. Oh, droll ! ” 

“ I wonder if I know your landlady ? ” 

“ Mrs. Sturge is her name.” 

‘‘ Sturge — Sturge — no, I don’t think I know 
her,” and Drummond sipped and set his glass on 
the mantelpiece again. 

“ Then I can tell you a joke about her ; at least 
I hope it’s a joke. I call it a joke. To look at it 
otherwise would irritate me. I heard the other 
day from a friend of mine — that — ” he gave ever so 
slight a pause and looked at his glass — she was 
going to visit friends at Dunecht — and it struck 

me that she could come this way — by Solway ” 

Yes, surely — a beautiful drive from here. But 
the coach goes only every other day, you know.” 

‘‘ Yes ; I know. I thought of writing, suggest- 
ing,” he flushed a little, but Drummond did not 
see that — only Jukes, suggesting that she come 
this way by an early train, have a view of Solway, 
and then go on by the coach at four o’clock. My 
landlady happened to come up when I was thinking 
of writing to her, and I said : ‘ Oh, Mrs. Sturge, I 
suppose if a friend came up with me some day next 
week you could give us lunch and tea ? ’ She looked 
at me and said : ‘ A friend ! Do you mean a lady 
friend ? ’ I said, ‘ Yes.’ And she said : ‘ No ; not 
in my rooms. I can have sisters come to see my 


156 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


gentlemen, but not cousins. Fm suspicious of 
cousins, and you can’t tell them by the face ; but 
a lady friend — alone — oh, no ! ’ ” 

Drummond’s face seemed always to wear an 
astonished or expectant look, and Henry did not 
see in it any suggestion that his story fell not as he 
imagined it necessarily must. So he went on : 

“ I said : ^ What ? ’ like that ; and she said : 
‘ Na, na ! You may be all right, Mr. Henry ; but 
Fve to think of what the neighbours would say.’ 
I said : ‘ Good heavens, Mrs. Sturge, you’re joking ! ’ 
And she said : ‘ It may be all right in London, but 
this is a small place and ’ — ^you wouldn’t guess what 
next ! — ‘ human nature is human nature, and we’re 
all John Thomson’s bairns.’ ” 

He ceased and awaited the outcry of derision — 
laughter, or short, angry outburst. 

Drummond was very erect and proper. 

Jukes was solemn and twinkling. 

‘‘ What did you say ? ” asked Jukes. 

I ? Oh, I said : ‘ Madam, we are not, dis- 
tinctly are not, all John Thomson’s bairns.’ She 
went away and left me — but I didn’t write. I 
really felt I couldn’t ask my friend to come to a 
house with such an atmosphere.” 

Drummond coughed. 

“ Pray don’t think me prurient, sir,” he said ; 
“ but I fear I must say a word on behalf of this 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


157 


estimable woman. There is a word to be said for 
her, you know.” 

“ Oh ? ” said Henry, and looked up, all astonish- 
ment. 

“ Well, sir, I quoted just now that the colonel’s 
lady and Judy O’Grady were sisters under their 
skins ” Drummond paused. 

“ And,” said Henry, as Drummond seemed to 
have more than paused, seemed to have taken it 
for granted that he had sufficiently explained him- 
self and need say no more, I tried to explain the 
way in which that is true ; also the way in which, 
far more, it is not true. I also quoted my remark 
that we are not all John Thomson’s bairns. How- 
ever, pray proceed,” he said, for Drummond had 
begun to make a stammering sound and to wave 
his hand. Jukes, who knew Henry a little at least, 
found a new note in his voice then. It was dan- 
gerously suave, he thought. 

Well, sir, I see how you are irritated,” said 
Drummond kindly, leniently, benign ; “ but think 
how things would go if you, with all good intention, 
had lady friends to see you alone. Think ! Think 
how others, not honest and good, if I may say so, 
would take advantage of that ” 

‘‘ Oh, let them talk — for me, that is. I know 
what you mean. I’ve seen a little of Solway. Let 
them talk — for me.” 


158 A Wilderness of Monkeys 

‘‘ I don’t mean that. I mean that the serving- 
girls, for instance, might say : ‘ The master has a 
girl friend to see him alone. Why can’t we ? ’ — and 
then — ^well, you know what the majority of people 
are ” 

“ Yes,” sighed Henry. ‘‘ Colonel Jukes once in- 
formed me that ” (Jukes glared frightened at 

him, wondering what on earth he had given in- 
formation of at all apropos ; but Bliss Henry went 
on relentlessly ; he had been drinking Jukes’s 
whisky, which Jukes had been glad to see, hoping it 
might render him amusing) “ informed me that 
when a man and woman were left alone together in 
Solway for two minutes ” 

‘‘ I protest ! ” cried Jukes. 

they immediately thought of what Shake- 
speare calls incestuous pleasures,” continued Bliss 
Henry, and pursed his lips and raised his head 
a little. 

“ They were your words ! ” cried Jukes. 

“ It was your statement,” said Henry, and blew 
smoke. However, Mr. — er — Drummond, you 
were saying ? ” 

Drummond looked from one to the other and 
then : 

“ Um — ^well — this is rather straight talking ; but 
of course we’re all men here — no ladies. I would 
say, also, about this young lady friend of yours. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


159 


that to invite her to — er — ‘ digs,’ as they are called, 
is not quite the thing.” 

Henry was going to cry out “ Why ? ” when Mr. 
Drummond went on : 

“ Especially if there is anything between you.” 

Henry sat erect. 

Jukes was gentleman enough, as the phrase is, to 
feel a pang, as host, and grew serious. 

Henry remained calm a little longer. 

‘‘ What makes you think that ? ” he said. “ Any- 
thing between us ? How do you mean ? ” 

‘‘ Well, I mean inviting a friend so. Your land- 
lady doubtless thought she was what, in her sphere, 
would be called your ‘ young lady.’ ” 

Henry felt as if he would suffocate or faint. He 
wondered if perhaps he had drunk too much — he 
thought he had almost the symptoms of apoplexy 
now. It was only, however, the strain of restraining 
himself that affected him so. He would let himself 
go presently. In certain cases one should be silent 
— in others, speak ! 

You mean that if we were in love it would 
never do ? ” he asked, quiet, speaking slow, dis- 
tinctly. He wanted to make quite sure of Drum- 
mond, to have him state his case so coldly that there 
would be no shuffling afterwards when the reply 
came. 

“ Thanks, yes — I mean that then, of course, it 


i6o A Wilderness of Monkeys 

would be quite wrong and I should agree with your 
landlady.” 

The girl he had thought of thus writing to, in a 
moment of unquestioning turning to her, was she 
of whom I have already once mentioned he had 
had a thought ; you remember — it was while the 
bookseller played one night and the stream crooned 
without. He saw her now in his mind’s eye — re- 
membered their many meetings in London — their 
many talks. God ! How all this would pain — aye, 
pain — her. 

Jukes thought the storm was over, thought Henry 
was going to make no reply, had decided to leave 
affairs at that. And despite his love of banter he 
was glad. But no. 

Why ? ” Henry’s voice exploded. 

There was no answer, but a shrug from the sway- 
ing Drummond. 

Said Henry ‘‘ Why ? ” again. 

“ Well, sir,” said Drummond, ‘‘ need you ask 
why ? Is it necessary to press the point ? ” 

Henry rose. 

“ It is,” said he. ‘‘ I shall press the point. I 
have never met you till this night and if I see you 
to-morrow I am hardly likely to recognise you. 
But I shall ask you this question : Do you mean a 

worse thing than all ? Do you mean to say ” he 

stuck, gasped, gave then a low cry, there is no other 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


i6i 


way I can describe that burst of soul : “ What ? 
Shall a man lust after the woman he loves ? ” 

All three were now on their feet. 

“ I put it,” said Henry, with a great restrained 
gesture in the silent room so strangely charged with 
a deeper thing than emotion, “ not as a fact. I 
would not speak of this girl to you. Indeed I de- 
clare to you that I do not love her. I put it all 
theoretically to you — as I presume a gentleman 
would have it — in the way in which I presume 
you quoted about the colonel’s lady in a retired 
colonel’s house — ^you being a gentleman — I put it 
theoretically, not personally. I ask you : Does a 
man lust after the woman he loves ? ” 

Jukes stood flustered. Drummond fluttered on 
the hearth. 

“ Really,” he said, ‘‘ your language is ” 

“ Sir,” cried Henry. ‘‘ Your ideas are worse than 
my language. Your ideas are such that I would not 
stay a moment under the same roof with you. I 
withdraw from you. Evidently you are too far 
gone even to desire my help. I withdraw. I wish 
you farewell. I shall never see you again — here — 
or hereafter.” He turned and bowed to Jukes. 

Colonel Jukes, I must crave your clemency for 
this scene — ^which was none of my seeking. Thanks 
— I shall And my way out. Pray don’t leave your 
friend. He may wish to talk to you of colonels’ ladies 


i 62 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


and Judy O’Gradys.” He bowed deep, and then 
drew up and looked in the eyes of this Mr. Drum- 
mond who had assisted at such a scene as never in 
his life had he dreamed of as possible. 

But Jukes came quietly to the door with Henry, 
helped him on with his coat. Then he did an odd 
thing. He clapped Henry’s shoulder as he took 
his hand. 

Come again,” he said. ‘‘ Come soon. Come 
when my sister is at home. I hope you are not 
offended.” 

“ Offended ! I hope I have not offended you,” 
said Don Henry. 

“ Not at all — not at aU. I can’t ask you to stay 
after the way you’ve been insulted, however. Good 
night.” 

He caught Henry’s hand again. The smile he 
gave then was not of banter, but of goodwill. 


XXVI 


B liss henry waited down the broad 
carriage-way, his feet crunching emphati- 
cally in the gravel; then, with his hand 
on the side-gate he looked back, and the thin light 
from the hall that had lit him forth went out. 
He saw Jukes a moment against it, as though bowing 
at hazard into the unseen. He waited a moment 
that his eyes might be better acquainted with the 
dark, windy night ; and then, seeing there was 
scarce any light in the sky, and as he saw, dimly, 
the borders of the road, deeper shadow of wall and 
hedge, he plunged forward down-hill. 

Branches creaked, and leaves rustled in a sub- 
dued immensity of sound ; blown leaves flicked his 
face as they were harried through the dark by the 
whirling wind. He plodded on, his occasional 
brushing of the wall due chiefly to the darkness 
and the uneven way. The worst of having touched 
liquor at all is that the sceptical may suggest — or 
the introspective *may even suggest to themselves — 
that one who had not touched anything more 
heady than water might not, at least, brush the 
wall, even in a dark and blustering night, so fre- 
163 


164 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


quently. But it was, in all honesty, a dark night 
and an uncertain pathway. 

There was relief for Bliss Henry when he came 
to the first lamp above Solway, for then he found 
that his occasional divagations had been due wholly 
to the dark. On that point I think one may trust 
his verdict ; for he was his own severest critic. It 
was an immense relief, and eased him of a growing 
irritability toward himself, to find that, as to the 
legs he was blameless. As to his mind — he was 
still aglow with a sense of the fitness and logical 
sequence of his remarks. He saw that he had gone 
to the root of the matter, with impeccable insight, 
and acumen such as one associates with the legal 
mind. As to the emotions — a fiurry of wind about 
him, a sudden departure of a cloud and breaking 
forth of the moon, settled their drift. He looked 
up and gazed, in the dusk, with glowing counte- 
nance, on the moon, as he posted down-hill, passing 
here and there pillared and gated entrances. When 
he arrived at the first houses of Solway proper, apart 
from these dotted upper houses, a quick patter of 
rain came over him — the moon was hid — revealed 
again — hid again — anon revealed. 

The rain came in splashes and he held up his face 
to its wet freshness with delight. 

A sudden great joy came to him ; nay, an emo- 
tion beyond joy. The touch of all the sordid 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 165 

things that he had been encountering seemed 
suddenly to be torrentially washed from him, and 
he stood stock still when that sense of newness 
came to him. 

The place was under a great plane tree, the 
trunk of which jutted out into the road, it being 
partly within and partly without the wall of its 
garden. The wall was about as high as his waist, 
and above that were railings set in it. He looked 
through and saw a row of gardens and trees and 
dotted shrubs and houses beyond, all standing 
dark. 

Below twinkled the street lamps of Solway, 
splashed about on the slope and marching up to- 
ward him in flickering lines. Over all were the 
flying clouds giving to the moon the aspect of a 
fleet courser, a courser that did not progress, a kind 
of dream courser, a kind of squirrel on a wheel — 
not that such a simile was in Henry’s mind. 

Still he remained motionless where that sense of 
being washed and blown clean had come to him. 

I know not how long he stood there tasting and 
living that immense joy. He stretched out a hand 
and leant it on the abutting plane tree; and at 
that contact a new joy came to him. He clapped 
the wet, rough trunk. He looked up, called to by 
a grand, subdued, and yet in its way stormy, dancing 
of the leaves over him. His eye pierced through 


i66 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


the wavering spaces of the billowing top, and he 
saw again the speeding and motionless moon, the 
blown stars. 

A splash of rain came and went. 

It was so windy a night that the pavement was 
drying ere the next splash came. He saw it spotted 
black with the raindrops — saw it lightning. 

Then a high, amazing, kind of victorious laughter 
of the leaves broke out again over him. 

He looked up rapt and joyous. 

‘‘ Oh tree ! ” he cried. ‘‘ Oh tree ! ” 

And at the sound of his voice came a conscious- 
ness of himself sole, in the world empty save for 
flying wind, and leaves, and rain, and the flying 
moon. 

“ Oh wind among the leaves ! ” he cried. 

He fumbled in his hip pocket and drew forth 
that inseparable companion, his hopeful notebook. 
The nearest lamp gave sufficient light for him to 
see at least which pages were blank ; and straight- 
way he began writing : 

“ This is a sad thing that a man must say 

Farewell to the blue waters and white moon, 

To dawns across the sea, to nights of June 
And red Septembral sunsets ; pass away 
Beyond the song of rivers and the play 
Of wind among the grasses on the dune ; 

Or, on the wall, of sun and leaf-shade ; soon. 

So soon, farewell, the wonders of the way.’’ 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


167 


He had had a slight pause at the blue of waters 
and a leap of his heart at the white of the moon. 
Now he had a longer pause. 

Then the tree gave a great glorious outcry. 

Yes ; the inspiration at that moment had at 
least momentarily failed. But when the tree 
cried again tempestuously with the wind, he gave 
a glad cry — upturned his face again. 

He lay against the protruding stem, part em- 
bracing it as far as the wall would allow, and waved 
up into the tossing top. 

‘‘ Oh tree ! ” he cried. ‘‘ I love you more than 
all things.” Then he saw again the moon — a cloud 
whisked away from its face — and ‘‘ Oh moon ! ” 
he cried. Oh tree and moon ! ” 

A squall of rain splashed him. 

“ And rain ! Oh rain ! ” he cried, and in 
the joy of it all he then took off his coat and 
jacket, all in one magnificent gesture, and 
thrust them hanging between the railings a-top 
the wall. 

He took his notebook from teeth that had ex- 
quisitely and delicately held it for the disrobing, 
and turned a page lest the rain should smudge 
the octave he had written ; and then with a 
sudden concentration and gathering of his brows, 
as when he sat at his table at home, he plunged 
into the sestet : 


i68 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


“ Yet it may be that he shall understand, 

When to the ultimate august silences 
He is led forth by an immortal hand, 

The reason why to leave these things he grieves. 

And grieveth not to leave all else that is ” 

He felt it in his whole consciousness — he could 
leave all — all Solway — all life — all — all — even Has- 
kell — and then a pang came, a pang that sobered 
him for a moment — a pang born of a nebulous 
thought of a woman living on and he one with 
the wind in the leaves, and the twinkle of stars 
and the flying of clouds. But he returned to his 
book and wrote the culminating line of his sonnet : 

“ O sun, O moon, O wind among the leaves.’’ 


And then he drew a great breath, and blew 
out a great one from his nostrils — and took off 
his waistcoat and put it with the other discarded 
raiment — and sat down on the pavement with his 
back against the tree and chanted his sonnet to 
the vasty and uninhabited night. 

He ceased, and sat rejoicing in the feel of the 
rain on his arms. He was just turning up his 
shirt-sleeves when came a voice : 

“ Hullo, mister ! Ye’ll be getting cold. What 
are you doing there ? ” 

He looked up and saw a constable before him, 
looking down on him heavy and coated. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


169 


“ Writing a sonnet,” said Henry. “ But, oh, far 
more than that ! Living ! Living, sir ! Cleaning 
my soul ! ” 

“ Writing a what ? ” 

Henry rose and with a compelling gesture con- 
ducted the constable nearer to the lamp and pro- 
duced his notebook and read, holding his book 
close, subconsciously thinking that the writing was 
bad, but glad that it was at least decipherable and 
that there was no hitch in his declamation : 

“ This is a sad thing that a man must say 

F arewell to the blue waters and white moon, 

To dawns across the sea, to nights of June 
And red Septembral sunsets ; pass away 
Beyond the song of rivers and the play 
Of wind among the grasses on the dune ; 

Or, on the wall, of sun and leaf-shade ; soon. 

So soon, farewell the wonders of the way, 

“ Yet it may be that he shall understand. 

When to the ultimate august silences 
He is led forth by an immortal hand. 

The reason why to leave these things he grieves. 

And grieveth not to leave all else that is 

O sun, O moon, O wind among the leaves.’^ 


‘‘ There’s a fine sound about that,” said the 
constable, when the reading was over and the 
poet waited in silence with an air that seemed to 
say : ‘‘ If you appreciate, it is a good sign of you. 


170 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


If you fail — well, I am sorry — but you have heard 
something of high value.” 

Did you do that ? ” said the scrutinising con- 
stable. 

‘‘ Just now,” said Henry, and waved his hand 
lightly toward the tree — to which he retired again, 
the constable pacing slowly back after him. 

“ Well,” said the constable after a short but 
sufficiently sympathetic and decorous silence, 
‘‘ you’ll have to be getting home now.” 

‘‘ Home ! ” cried Henry. “ I am not going 
home. Constable,” the moon was disclosed again, 
“ I am going to live for ever — like the moon,” he 
added. 

“ All right, all right,” said the constable. 

‘‘ And here I am going to stay to-night.” 

All night ? ” asked the constable. 

“ Till morning,” said Henry. 

“ Well,” said the constable with a kind of sigh^ 
‘‘ I’ve to go up a bit farther. Maybe I’ll see ye 
when I’m coming back.” 

‘‘ I’ll be here,” said Henry. Constable — would 

you care to hear the sonnet again ? ” 

Thank you — I’ve heard it once.” 

“ I can speak it to you,” said Henry. 

The constable tarried, and Henry spoke it again. 
He began it sitting, and then was smitten with a 
sense of the lack of reverence toward the phrases. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


171 


and rose at the second line and stood reverentially 
speaking the words in a fashion he conceived as 
not without much of the splendid and fitting. 

There was silence at the close and Henry thought 
his constable a man with some fine strength — a 
godsend in Solway. The constable looked on him 
long from the deep shadow of helmet and brows 
and doubtfully remarked : 

‘‘ You’ll be catching cold.” 

‘‘ I’m all right,” said Henry. 

“ Very well,” said the constable and continued 
his slow way up-hill. When his footsteps ceased 
Henry looked up again to the plane tree top, 
caressed the stem and sat down again in his old 
posture. Now and then he looked up and waved — 
now to the moon — now to the tree — now in a 
comprehensive wave that included all the dome 
and all the tossing trees of the night, his heart full 
of he knew not what wonder. He felt another 
poem in him, one that he had not the power to 
write, and he began to feel the sonnet a poor 
affair by comparison with that unwritten but felt 
paean in his life, somewhere, he knew not where — 
head, heart, in his very veins, they being filled 
from his pumping heart with surely not blood, but 
with immortality and splendour and glory. 

Suddenly again a voice : 

Hullo ! Are you not in bed yet ? ” 


172 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


It was the returned constable. 

“ Hullo, constable ! Back again ! Pass on, 
please — pass on — I would be left alone with the 
tree and the moon.” 

“ Ah, well,” said the constable, Pve to go up 
a side-way here next. I’ll be back again,” and he 
moved on yet once more and disappeared in a side 
shadow. 

But when he returned the poet had departed. 
The constable walked to the wall to see that he 
had not by accident left his clothes. No — they 
were gone also. 

The tree was alone, waving and singing in the 
night — Oh, sun; oh, moon; oh, wind among the 
leaves. 


XXVII 



•HERE was a little buzz of voices in Haskell’s 


incandescent-lighted library, and to our 


extravagant author the place was of course 
a salon, or possible salon, A brightly-lit book-lined 
room, with one or two people in it talking — how 
could it be otherwise ? He forgot the quality of 
the books for one point ! 

Haskell, moving in a corner with that odd air 
more of master of the assemblies than of your 
obsequious servant, saw him enter. He noticed 
that Bliss Henry gave a quick smile in response 
to his, and then looked away, as though not de- 
siring to interfere with business. Haskell, glancing 
again, after that recognition, took stock of Henry 
in the openly surreptitious way that is possible to 
one who wears pince-nez, aided by the sheen on 
the glasses. He thought that Henry looked re- 
markably well and wondered if the author had 
been busy ; he had not seen him during these 
two days since his return from “ arranging a 
gentleman’s library.” 

As a matter of fact Henry had been indoors, self- 
prisoned, for shame, and when he had come out 


174 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


that evening had faced the streets prepared to 
hear a whisper through Solway : Now you know 
him. He’s a drunkard.” 

Henry moved along the walls glaring at the 
books, and then a voice said : 

“ You are engrossed, Mr. Henry.” 

He was indeed engrossed, not just pretending 
till his bookseller should be free to talk ; for he 
had found an old calf-bound Jeremy Taylor in a 
side shelf with other books — not similar inside, but 
as to binding — probably from some merely moneyed 
person’s house, where all the books were bound 
in skin from the same family of calves, or some- 
thing of that kind. And now he was reading of 
the tomb of Ninus. 

He turned and bowed — to Miss Montague, who 
stood behind him, tall, stately, in a dress of a grey- 
ness that made her eyes more wondrously, witch- 
ingly grey, with three daffodils — the stems cut 
short — just showing in the folds of her loose grey 
cloak, a blue scarf over her hat, tied under her 
chin — ^giving our author a thought of Arnold’s 

“ Paint that lilac kerchief, bound 
Her soft face, her hair around : 

Tied under the archest chin 
Mockery ever ambushed in.” 

She had had to speak to him to attract him. It 
pleased him, turning at her voice, to know that 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


^7S 


he had not felt her presence, not felt that damned 
magnetic stir ” again ; and so he was wholly pleased 
to see her. Ah, if only he had had such as she to 
talk with, the thrill-less she, the she minus thrill ! — 
instead of Drummond — the affair of the plane tree 
had never happened ! As he turned to Miss 
Montague, seeing her open, direct eyes, and their 
dancing clearness, he thought ; ‘‘ I wonder if by 
any chance she knows.” She did not — but the 
story, I am sure, would have amused her im- 
mensely. 

She held her hand tentatively to him and he 
took it and bowed. Here was the belle lettrist 
who would have understood all Henry’s side of the 
Drummond v, Henry business — or so he believed, 
for he did not yet know her. It was splendid to 
meet her to-night — and in so frank and friendly a 
way. She healed him — but with none of that 
magnet and filing emotion of which he had been 
conscious before. 

He looked at her very candidly. Then he was 
suddenly a little disturbed to observe that she be- 
came oddly nervous. Her queenliness seemed to 
be suddenly a strained matter. What ! Had he 
been rude in his manner of greeting ! She looked 
left and right at those in the salon as though afraid 
they were staring, her first ease shaken. To put 
her at ease Henry turned his back fully to the 


176 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


wall, that she might face him, so that if any stared 
in the queer way of Solway when a man and woman 
stood talking (he had observed that way of Solway), 
he could return a quiet gaze on the starer that did 
not even say, ‘‘ Well ? ” — ^just a quiet look of un- 
observance and the starer would look away and 
Miss Montague need not feel put out — not seeing 
these looks, the knowledge of the possibility of 
which, he at once quietly opined to himself, had 
made that sudden nervousness of manner, she being 
of a refined cast of mind. 

“ Here’s a beautiful old book,” he said, and she 
looked at it quickly, almost snatched it, the way 
one snatches a life-belt. Then she regained her 
ease. 

‘‘ What is it ? No ; I don’t know him,” she 
said. I’ve to come to him yet. I know he has 
wonderful passages. Fancy finding this here ! 
Haskell is bucking up — oh, I hope you don’t mind 
slang ? ” 

“ Why — I like it. How bucking up ? ” 

“ I mean he is buying books that there is not a 
great demand for — not popular. Look what I 
have found. I’ve been making discoveries here as 
well as you.” 

“ Ah ! Ballades and Rondeaux, English Odes — 
that’s a fine little volume. Do you know Pat- 
more’s Unknown Eros P ” 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


177 


“ Um — yes. It’s beautiful music, but very vague, 
mystical, I suppose. I like it, of course, but ” 

The boy appeared from the shop and Miss 
Montague held out her hand for the books he 
brought her. 

‘‘ He knows not to put them in paper unless I 
ask,” she said, taking them from the boy. “ I’ve 
just been getting Laurence Hope’s poems,” and 
she held up the volumes. 

‘‘ Yes — I know them. They are interesting.” 

She frowned a little. 

‘‘ I don’t object to erotic verse,” she said. “ Do 
you?” 

‘‘ Everything is interesting,” he said. 

Her eyes blinked quickly and her lips went tight. 

‘‘ Some people,” said Miss Montague, “ think if 
there is anything about fleet white limbs, or brown 
limbs, in a book of poems that the poetry is bad. 
I hope you are not like that. I don’t think you 
are from the things I have heard you say.” 

No,” he said. ‘‘ No — I’m not like that. I 
hope I look far deeper than that.” 

Suddenly her eyes had a fascinating beauty for 
him, looking deep and questioning in his. 

A sudden squall of rain rang on the dark window 
that looked out on the little court with the gnarled 
tree in the midst of the cobbles and the old houses 
round it. 


M 


178 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


“ Oh,” she said, what weather ! I’ll have to 
get these wrapped up, after all. What weather ! 
It deludes the poor birds. To-day I found a dead 
blackbird by the roadside. I stopped and buried 
him under a great lime tree and put one of these 
flaunting daffodils on his grave to match his yellow 
beak.” 

The magnetism he disliked died — fled out at the 
phrase. 

She put up her hand to arrange the daffodils. 
It was a beautiful phrase, he thought — and a 
beautiful thing to do, to bury the bird and deck 
its resting-place. Here, he felt, in the beauty of 
that phrase, was something to live by, something 
of what he had sought to ease him of the hideous 
wounds of Solway. 

Miss Montague gathered her books and skirts 
and smiled, nodded — not bowed — “ Good night,” 
glanced round toward Haskell, “ Oh, he’s engaged,” 
nodded again to Henry and went out into the 
shop. 

Bliss Henry put the Jeremy Taylor back in its 
place. 

The crowd thinned. Haskell came to him. 

“ Well, stranger, I see you had a talk with Miss 
Montague just now.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I’m glad. She reads ; and I daresay you could 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


179 


find things in common. She would be bucked up, 
I expect, to hear you.” 

‘‘To hear me ! said Henry, he not feeling 
particularly great. 

“ Certainly, oh, humble egoist.” 

“ She — why, she said ” and Henry quoted the 

lady’s words of blackbird and daffodil. “ Why, 
she’s great — I’m — I’m immensely ” 

‘‘ Oh — that’ll soon pass,” said Haskell. 


XXVIII 


HAT night Bliss Henry again found the 



capacity to work. He took up his puppets 


on his return and went on gloriously, 
getting down just what he wanted. What was 
sordid around him had been thrust back by a 
beautiful phrase. He worked till long after mid- 
night, and then, arranging his papers neatly and 
quietly, acting rather as a deft surgeon arranging 
his instruments, after one clean and successful 
operation and preparatory to the next, than as a 
neurasthenic author who is supposed to throw 
about disorder and ink, he went to bed. There 
were no sounds through the open window save 
the running of a night wind in the valley and far- 
off crowing of cocks — here, there, yonder, in scat- 
tered farms of the plain — speeding the night. 

The next morning he rose early, tubbed, and 
had already done a good day’s work when his 
breakfast was brought up. 

The table was strewn with his papers. He 
cleared only a corner and said : That’s all right. 
Just set there.” 

He hardly looked up to see who had brought 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


i8i 


the meal to him, so intent on the world of his 
puppets. He had ceased, at least for the time 
being, to know the need of living down the atmo- 
sphere which had atrophied his powers. He was 
not aware that it was May who had arrived with 
the tray and that she was a little exultant in her 
manner ; so he was not aware that, at his ignoring 
of her, the exultation faded and she departed, 
heavy, squat, stolid, crushed. 

He went on working after breakfast ; and when 
Mrs. Sturge came to clear away the dishes he was 
again deep in the world of his puppets. She gave a 
peremptory tap, such a tap as would have irritated 
him immensely a few days ago. As he now was he 
just cried out : “ Come in,” and, not looking up, 
went on with his work, not aware that it was Mrs. 
Sturge who entered and that she had come in very 
stately and defiant. 

Her jaw dropped a little at sight of Bliss Henry’s 
self-sufficient pose. She stood a moment stock still, 
her mouth open — then she cleared the table. 

Once or twice, at this employ, she paused, looked 
at her lodger, frowned, seemed about to speak ; 
but he worked on, his pen going surely over the 
paper. She departed a little more quietly than 
she had arrived. She came back presently and 
passed through to his bedroom to make his bed — 
but she could not disturb him. She even seemed 


1 82 A Wilderness of Monkeys 

a little fearful of doing so, went rather subdued 
behind his chair toward the bedroom. 

Yes ; Bliss Henry had a grip on the life of his 
puppets. Day after day he worked on. His days 
were glorious. Each day he tramped up High 
Street and forth on to the moors for a couple of 
hours ; each day he wrote another substantial por- 
tion of the book that Solway was to have given 
him peace to write ; whether Solway helped or 
hindered he was certainly writing now. His funds 
were, of course, sinking ; but he had one or two 
small commissions for articles and the like. It had 
been his intention to pause in the work when it 
was half written, and write these articles ; but so 
much of it must be done first. Now, thanks to 
this new peace, he was going, after all, to be able 
to carry out that intention, which he had feared 
had been all blown to the winds during recent days. 
Yes, at last the book was half written — and de- 
spatched, so sure was he of it, to his typist in 
London. 

How the second half was to go on was perfectly 
clear in his mind, so clear that he had a great con- 
flagration of abortive pages, a great tidying up, and 
laid his papers out afresh and took a new pen to do 
the ‘‘ pot-boilers.” 

And then, coming home from one of these 
tramps that kept his physical frame well for the 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


183 


sake of his mind, a little old woman (whose wont 
it was to come on Sunday afternoon to the house 
to get the scraps of meat left over during the 
week) bobbed a curtsey to him. 

Henry had heard a deal of this little old woman, 
for Mrs. Sturge was not the woman to give away 
scraps of meat once a week without talking about 
it, if possible, every day. Amazing it was what a 
variety of occasions would serve for a harangue on 
that philanthropy. If it were not noted in the 
book that Mrs. Sturge imagined God kept for 
her it must assuredly have been recorded in His 
gramophone record many times — but perhaps Mrs. 
Sturge would think a gramophone with her name 
on it in the shelves of heaven not so fitting as a 
Book, blasphemous perhaps ! 

“ Excuse me, sir,” said the wrinkled and smiling 
old dame, and Henry paused and touched his hat. 

She gave him another bob and smile. 

“ Excuse me, sir, but Pm an old, old woman, 
and I like you, sir, for your fine carriage and 
your beautiful eyes ; and I have a word to say 
to ye.” 

His brows elevated over his “ beautiful eyes ” 
that he had not known were beautiful. He remem- 
bered more the despite of men than the praise — 
which he generally feared was flattery — and he had 
been told that he had a bad eye in his head, a 


184 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


bad, wild eye,” once, years ago; he had been 
sorry and had deeply hoped it would improve. 

Pm an old woman,” said the dame, and Henry’s 
hand went a little to his pocket and then, feeling 
that was not what she wanted, his hand paused 
and — 

‘‘ No, no,” said she ; it’s not that Pm after, 
sir. It’s something to tell you, sir ; and now I 
really don’t like to tell you. But why shouldn’t 
I ? It’s that sly puss of a girl here, sir ; she told 
me such a thing of you, sir, the other day. Told 
me, sir, her own words, that you had been trying 
to take liberties with her.” 

“ What ? ” He looked horrified, and then smiled 
a stupid smile. 

“ Just what I said, sir,” cried the dame ; ‘‘ and 
I told her that if I saw your bonnie face Pd tell 
you what she said. I knew that she was lying. 
And when I said that Pd be after telling you on 
her she showed it on her face that she lied.” 

“ Silly girl ! ” said Henry. And I gave her a 
sovereign,” he mused more than uttered. But she 
heard. 

‘‘ Whatever for, sir ? ” 

‘‘ Because — because I am still able to be dis- 
illusioned,” he spoke to air and waved his hand. 

“ I don’t understand,” said the old dame. ‘‘ But 
anyhow, sir. I’ve told you what that girl said ; 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


185 


told you because of your beautiful eyes — and a boy 
I had once with eyes like them. I think it’s right 
you should know. If she’d talk like that to me 
she’d talk the same to anybody ; and Solway talks, 
sir.” 

“ Oh ! ” cried Henry in disgust, “ oh — well ! ” he 
decided with hard voice and forceful toss of head, 

if servants will talk filth they’ll have to talk it 
and, as Solomon said, one need not give heed to 
what servants say — just let them say.” 

What sort of soul the menial had he did not 
pause to consider. It was his way to consider these 
things ; but this was too small, and paltry, and 
disgusting for him to go psychologising and dis- 
secting. He had work to do — big work, the 
book — one or two “ pot-boilers,” besides, to keep 
him in funds that he might write the book, the 
great book, full of beauty for those who would 
have it. 

The little old woman bobbed and tittuped away 
with aged agility ; she looked, he thought, as if 
fearing a return of his hand to his pocket where 
was his money. He liked the old wrinkled dame. 
She had sweet old eyes. 

He walked into the “ digs ” determining to say 
nothing. Why fuss about servants who, well 
treated, took advantage of that — and became 
menials ! He would dismiss it ! 


1 86 A Wilderness of Monkeys 

Then suddenly : “ Tut ! The only way is to 
treat them as menials ! ” 

With sudden vigour he rang his bell and when 
May answered it, with head in air, which settled 
it, said he : 

“ I wish to see Mrs. Sturge.” 

Sir, sir — forgive me. I ” 

“ Your mistress ! ” 

Mrs. Sturge came up at once, bonneted, and 
cloaked in a cloak with hanging bits of black glass 
and ribbon about it, little bits of black glass like 
prisms ; she had just returned from afternoon 
service. 


XXIX 


M 


RS. STURGE,” he said, “ I give you 
a week’s notice.” 

And whatever for ? ” she cried. 

Is that a way to treat an honest woman ? If you 
was being a Christian and going to church instead 
of hatching plots to annoy an honest widow on 
her return ” 

“ A week’s notice,” said Henry, “ from to-day.” 

A fine man you are to take on such airs ! ” Mrs. 
Sturge drew terribly erect. “ Ever since you found 
out that that poor girl of mine had got into trouble 
you have treated her scandalously — scandalous ! 
It’s cruel, I call it, to a poor unfortunate girl. 
And now I’ve got a word for you — now that you’ve 
given your notice. Oh, I know the kind of man 
you are, coming home drunk and insulting a 
woman.” 

“ Eh ? ” 


“ Aye ! You may well look as if you had to be 
careful. You came home here drunk and came 
into my room half naked — to think that I should 
be heard with such a word on my lips ! And what 
would Solway think if they heard such a story ? 
187 


i88 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


Answer me that ! You came into my room with half 
your clothes off — an honest, God-fearing, respect- 
able, married woman — and widow ! What would 
Solway think if I told them that ? And I shall 
now ! ni tell them ! Fll tell them the kind of 
man you are in a house with a respectable widow 
and a maid-servant.” 

‘‘ When was this, madam ? ” asked Henry quietly. 

Six weeks ago, and never a word from you 
since ; just sitting there over your papers and 
books — ^you that think yourself a man with brains — 
brains ! — you come into my bedroom and then 
treat me like dirt ; aye, more than a month ago 
it was, if you don’t remember ; six weeks, pretty 
near.” 

‘‘ And I came into your room ? ” 

‘‘ Yes, you did ! And I have a witness. That 
poor girl is a witness to it. May was so flustered 
that she came running in to see what was wrong. 
I sent the poor girl away and got you quiet to your 
own room. I couldn’t have a young girl like her 
see a man like that.” 

At this juncture May appeared in the doorway, 
her hand upraised as though knocking in air. 

‘‘ If you please,” she said, when Mrs. Sturge 
turned about, “ Mr. Haskell to see Mr. Henry.” 

Mrs. Sturge stood triumphant. 

But so did Henry. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 189 

‘‘ Come up ! Come in, Haskell ! ” shouted 
Henry. ‘‘ Tell him to come up — come in.” 

Mrs. Sturge stood erect, but not triumphant, 
rather nonplussed. 

Haskell entered and looked amazed. May re- 
treated a little way — just out of sight. 

“ Mrs. Sturge,” said Henry, “ will you repeat 
your story before Mr. Haskell, please ? ” 

“ Oh ! ” cried Mrs. Sturge. ‘‘ I ! ” 

“ Then I shall. You say that six weeks ago I 
came into your bedroom half naked ” 

“You did I You did!” 

“Six weeks ago ” 

“ You did ; I swear it. You bring this on your- 
self, remember — and if you have so little shame 

left May I May ! Come here. I have a 

witness. Come in, girl ; don’t stand back. It’s 
all right with me here. Come in.” May appeared 
again at the door. “ Didn’t Mr. Henry come in 
drunk about six weeks ago and come into my room 
and ” 

“ I don’t know, Mrs. — please ” 

“ Don’t know ! ” 

May hung her head and then : “ Yes.” 

“ He was drunk ? ” 

No answer. 

“ Do you hear ? Don’t be afraid.” 

“ Yes.” 


190 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


‘‘ There you are ! ” cried Mrs. Sturge. 

Haskell stood smiling foolishly and blinking ; 
Henry, with head in air, looking exceedingly well 
indeed, radiant, bright. 

Good ! ’’ said Henry. ‘‘ Now, ma’am — ^you 
hear this, Mr. Haskell — now Mrs. Sturge,” he 
raised a solemn finger, ‘‘ what do you think Solway 
would think of that ? Nay, more ; what do you 
think Solway will say when it knows ? I came 
into your room half naked six weeks ago and — 
observe — I am still here, A fine state of affairs, 
Mrs. Sturge, for an honest, married widow ! Oh, 
Mrs. Sturge ! ” 

Mrs. Sturge tried to speak, but only made a 
clucking sound. 

Six weeks ago,” went on Henry, “ I came into 
your bedroom and — Mrs. Sturge, are you listen- 
ing ? ” She tried to speak, but again in vain. “ I 
am still here,” declared our author ; ‘‘ and what 
do you think Solway would think of that, ma’am ? ” 

Mrs. Sturge was collapsing. 

“ You ! Oh, you wouldn’t tell such a thing, 
would you ? ” she stammered. “ Think of your 
own character, sir — as a man with a character to 
lose for respectability for yourself.” 

“ I do not think of myself as a man,” said Henry, 
‘‘ and with a character to lose. I am a brain. I 
am a symbol.” 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 19 1 

“ Eh ? ” Mrs. Sturge was feeling behind her 
for a chair. 

I don’t know,” went on Henry thoughtfully, 

but what it is duty to tell Solway, for the 
sake of decency, about you six weeks ago. I have 
a witness to the event and another now to your 
own statement. You can’t deny it. It would be 
quite futile to try to deny it now. I have Mr. 
Haskell here for a witness that you have admitted 
it. May is a witness.” He paused, and then : 
“ Mrs. Sturge, here’s a fine story for a respectable 
married widow ! ” 

Mrs. Sturge sat down, lay back, choked. 

Haskell choked a little, too. 

“ Six weeks ago, madam — a naked man ” 

Henry’s voice went on. 

‘‘ Half naked,” said Mrs. Sturge, and fainted. 

May stood in the doorway like dead meat in a 
butcher’s shop. Haskell stood grinning at nothing, 
like an effigy. Henry stood with his left hand in 
pocket, right hand toying with his thin watch- 
guard, head up, smiling like a cherub. 

Then Mrs. Sturge came round. 

Are you awake ? ” asked Henry gently but with 
determination. 

She sat up and said : “ Oh ! ” and her eyes rolled. 

‘‘ Mrs. Sturge,” said Henry, “ I have altered my 
plans. I shan’t leave you — I’ll stay on.” 


192 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


She rose like a plucked turkey after combat. 

“ And, Mrs. Sturge ! ” 

‘‘ Yes ? ” murmured Mrs. Sturge. 

You’ll be very civil to me,” said Henry, and 
attentive, and very careful about your tongue — 
remember ; the tongue is a small member, but the 
root of all evil. And if you are all these things I 
won’t tell Solway that horrible story about you 
and a naked man that you have been harbouring — 
for six weeks ! It’s a shocking story, madam ! ” 
Her eyes bulged. She looked apoplectic. ‘‘ Look 
after your mistress. May ! ” 

May advanced, took her mistress’s arm, led her 
forth ; they passed from the room. Haskell and 
Henry stood in the middle of the room looking at 
each other with changing expressions on their faces, 
expressions that beat me to describe. 


XXX 


HE postman’s knock sounded, that double 



knock that always beat a tattoo of hope 


and preparedness for Bliss Henry : if any- 
thing joy-bringing came — ^good ; if nothing helpful 
came — it was always one more post gone past, one 
more tattoo sounded toward the last tattoo ! To 
be alert at the sound of a postman’s knock is evi- 
dently common to all folk ; Haskell also, at the 
sound, had the air of expectation ; and then, con- 
sidering that he was not in his own house, the 
expectancy, for himself, suddenly died out. 

May came pattering upstairs with that odd, 
quick step of brutish thew and heavy coquetry, 
tapped, entered. Droll how May’s manner changed 
with the weather in the house ! She was now 
defiant, bold indeed Haskell esteemed her, with 
a mental note of her manner and a thought that 
he would not have a servant enter a room so. He 
would teach her manners. He had a puzzling 
thought : ‘‘ Why did she enter so ? ” But no — he 
dismissed that. It was just like Bliss Henry to 
allow a servant to flaunt about in a fashion that 
might suggest, to the average observant person, 
N 193 


194 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


that her master had cheapened himself with her. 
Haskell was annoyed at the suggestion in his mind 
— annoyed therefore at the girl. 

The bitch ! he thought, in his — er — coarse 
way. I wonder if I could hint to Bliss Henry 
what people might think ! Oh, faugh ! He’s all 
right ! What does it matter ! ” 

She tossed down half a dozen letters on the 
table, swung about to go out. 

Bliss Henry looked at the letters, his mouth 
puckered. The top letter was in the handwriting 
of that girl friend whom you heard him mention — 
talking theoretically with Drummond at Jukes’s 
house. To see it cast down so stirred him ! 

“ May ! ” he said sharply. 

She swung back, looked on him. But he did 
not yet look at her. 

‘‘Yes ? ” she said, standing at the door, still with 
that flaunting air, but forced now. 

Then Bliss Henry raised his head. 

“ Come here,” he said. “ Take these letters up. 
Take them to the hall, put them on the salver and 
bring them in on the salver.” 

She tossed her shoulders, shook her hips, half 
turned as though to go ; but then her eyes dropped 
a little from staring on him. And she felt that he 
was looking at her, and she came to the table and 
lifted the letters. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


195 


And, May ! ” His voice came oddly. 

She looked up at him again, but now only as high 
as to his waist. 

Say, ‘ Yes, sir,’ to me ! I have been too lax 
with you, I see. Evidently you can’t stand my 
treatment. Now, go and bring these letters back 
on the salver.” 

There was no word when she went. Henry 
stood stroking his chin and looking out of the win- 
dow. If he thought at all about Haskell it was 
only to conjecture (careless, however, of Haskell’s 
possible opinion) : ‘‘ Very likely he thinks me a 
petty, domineering ass.” 

Haskell, of course, thought nothing of the kind. 
He stood with eyes that seemed to see nothing, 
stood there patient, heedless looking, his manner 
much after Henry’s, till May returned and ad- 
vanced with the salver — but, oh, he was ob- 
serving. 

May found Henry still looking out of the window ; 
and now he turned and lifted the letters leisurely. 
The girl stood a perceptible moment, then tossed 
her head and whisked about. 

May ! ” 

She turned. 

“ Say ‘ Yes, sir,’ that I may know you hear.” 

‘‘ Yes — sir.” 

You thought I should have said ‘ Thanks ’ 


196 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


just now. I used to say ‘Thanks’ at first when I 
came here, used to say ‘ Thanks ’ when I took 
letters from the salver. I continued to say ‘ Thanks ’ 
when you discontinued to use the salver but handed 
me my letters. Not that I didn’t perceive the 
change — only, as I say, I’m lax. I am going to 
put that right now — with you.” She looked a 
little awed. “ There was really no need for me to 
say ‘ Thanks ’ at all, ever. But now you are going 
back to the use of the salver and I’m not going 
to say ‘ Thanks.’ May ! ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Be always careful. Remember your position. 
You understand me ? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

She stood still. 

“ That’s all.” 

She went away and closed the door — quietly. 

“ It’s damnable,” said Henry, “ the way one is 
forced to behave. Sit down, do.” 

“ I don’t think I shall now. I had only a little 
while to stay and it’s gone now, pretty nearly. 
Anyhow, I don’t know that I need say what I came 
to — eh — hint to you.” 

“ Dear me, this is mysterious ! ” said Henry, but 
seemed not extremely interested in the mystery, 
seemed as if he could live on without it being ex- 
plained. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


197 


I don’t think you need it, after all,” said 
Haskell. Then : ‘‘ By Jove ! By Jove ! ” 

‘‘ What ? ” 

Henry seemed more interested. 

“ I’ve seen a change in you to-day,” said Haskell, 
nodding. 

“ Oh, well,” he almost apologised, his voice a 
little petulant. They force it on me.” 

Of course they do ! I’m in sympathy with 
you — very much. I’m sorry though — I’ll never 
live up to you. I admire it all. I believe I could 
help you — for I understand you. But I’ll never 
live up to you. I’ll always say : ‘ Oh, well, what 
does it matter ! ’ when it comes to the bit. But, 
oh, God, I admire you. You’ve turned over a 
new leaf.” He paused, meditative, seemed about 
to speak, then to change his mind and keep silent. 
Then : I wonder if you’ll carry out into Solway 
what I’ve seen you begin here in your own room 
in Solway,” he said. 

“ If they force it on me.” 

“ If you stay long enough they’ll force you,” 
said Haskell. He stood half smiling, half serious. 
“ It has its comic side,” he said ; ‘‘ but it has a 
very deep, significant side, too.” 

‘‘ Do sit down,” said Henry, for Haskell had 
leant against the wall. 

Not now. I’ve my business to attend to — I 


198 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


just looked up — that’s all. How long are you to 
be in Solway ? You told me, but I forget.” 

“ Till I’m ready to go,” said Henry with quiet 
vehemence. “ I said about six months, but I 
don’t know now. I’ll go just when I wish.” 

Haskell looked gleefully on him and squared his 
shoulders, as if inspired by him. 

‘‘ Good-bye — I must go. Drop in,” he said, and 
was off. 

Henry presently opened his letters : one from 
that friend that Mrs. Sturge’s morality had made 
him not invite to go to Dunecht via Solway ; one 
from his publisher, a kind letter, enclosing two 
introductions to people in Solway — ‘Test you feel 
lonely sometimes.” There was also a returned 
manuscript ; also there was a cheque for a manu- 
script that had been accepted eighteen months 
ago, and appeared six months ago, payment of 
which had been obtained by his solicitor, who en- 
closed a note from the editor which remarked : 
‘‘ I have been ill or would have attended to this 
matter earlier. I am sorry Mr. Bliss Henry has 
brought you into this matter. There is really no 
earthly reason for his having done so.” 

After he had read the letters he went to the 
window, opened it a little wider, stood gazing 
away down the High Street over the vista of green 
fields into the blue distance, with its two shining 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


199 


twists of river. With calm, then, and a sense of 
power such as came seldom to him with so great 
certainty, he turned to his table, seated him, and 
began on the second part of his book, in which were 
the beauty and colour of Solway — as to the moors, 
and the air, and the white gables, and the red- 
tiled and brown-thatched roofs ; in which were 
his own puppets doing romantic, and exhilarating, 
and beautiful things — not the real puppets of 
Solway, as they are in this book of mine ; but I 
have already hinted something to that effect. He 
went on quietly, calmly with his work, aware only 
of the wind blowing in to him from the quiet 
world of moors and rivers ; quite untouched now 
by what he found atrophying in the atmosphere ” 
of the house, and had, by the way, as you may guess, 
knowing him as you do, called himself a decadent, 
a neurasthenic, all sorts of names, for feeling. 

Personally, I believe he had felt that atmosphere 
atrophying because he was clean, like the hill-wind, 
and that he did not feel it now because he had 
blown it from him, and so made himself stronger. 


XXXI 




"OU look wild and sad,” said Haskell. 

It was Friday evening, and Friday was 
a quiet day in Solway. The back premises 
of Haskell’s shop were vacant ; the books, both 
fresh and faded, those handled and those not 
handled, were all standing mute round the walls, 
with the incandescent light glinting on the gold 
letters on some, on the red splashes on others — 
the bright light making the dilapidated appear 
more sordid, the clean more shining. 

‘‘ I am,” said Henry, sad, wild, disgusted, 
sick.” 


‘‘ You’ve been seeing more of Solway,” suggested 
Haskell, “ since last I saw you.” 

I’ve been going out a bit more — visiting, I 
mean.” 

“ That’s it, is it ? I wondered whether you were 
working or doing that. I had hoped you were 
working.” 

“ I have been working. My book is three-quarters 
through. But everything is wrong.” 

“ Wrong ? Everything ? Come now ; I see by 
the Publishers^ Circular that your last book is still 


200 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


201 


selling well,” and Haskell indicated the table where 
lay lihe Clique and The Publishers'^ Circular and The 
Bookman and Clegg^s Directory and the odd im- 
plements of his trade. 

‘‘ Ah — but there’s nothing in it,” said Henry 
dismally. 

“ What ! ” ejaculated Haskell. 

“ All frippery ! All frippery ! It is of the 
literature that is for the idle to read on sofas with 
a cup of tea on a little table by their sides, or in a 
lounge chair at the club. So is the one I’ve got 
so near an end. There’s the dear old central 
character, made a little extravagant, so as to stand 
the limelight, as those publishers’ readers phrase 
it who are more commercial than artistic and hag- 
ridden by the phrase ‘ What the public wants,’ in- 
stead of remembering that what the public wants it 
wants only for a week, and that when authors give 
themselves to the public, instead of giving the public 
what it wants^"^ he snorted, “ they live for years 
instead of weeks. Well — I’m what the public 
wants in a refined sort of way. I’ve given it, once 
again, the quixotic character who does no harm 
and is looked upon with smiling affection, and at 
the end is married to a delightful puppet, a rag, 
and a bone, and a hank of hair, some Irish lace, 
some French frills — and just a little scent, not too 
much. Oh, a delightful creation, and all my own ! 


202 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


He’s an author this time. In ^he Fan he was merely 
a moneyed ^ out-o’-work.’ They are of a leisured 
class, or supposed to be leisured, my puppets, taking 
their leisure. A leading character harmlessly 
quixotic — such a dear man ! — witty, epigrammatic ; 
in a panama and sunshine, and with a cigarette ; 
well-bred, humorous. Love in a garden ! Tea 
in the garden, with sunlight in the silver, and a bird 
in the ilex. The leading lady a smiling dummy ! 
My books have what is called ‘ charm ’ ; but Fm 
a bit sick to find who reads them. Certainly the 
censor will never ban them, certainly there is not 
a phrase in them that the libraries will say may 
offend readers ” 

Hang it all ! ” broke out Haskell. It’s some- 
thing to charm tired hearts. You don’t want to 
teach, do you ? ” 

Henry looked as if he had received a blow below 
the belt. Then he recovered. 

“ If I charmed the striving,” said he, gave 
them a little rest to go on again, I should be happy ; 
but I’m only charming those who live to be charmed 
by any charm, good, bad, or indifferent. And to 
be a clean charm is not much better than being a 
dirty charm — to those who live only, solely, to be 
charmed — diverted. God ! I’m going to hold the 
mirror up to life a little more in my next book, I 
assure you.” 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


203 


Haskell blew a stage sigh. 

“ What’s the cause of all this depression ? ” 
said he. 

‘‘ The cause of the depression is that I find I am 
known in Solway,” said Henry coldly, ‘‘ known 
among the leisured class. My books have been put 
in Mudie’s boxes for them ; and so I am known 
among the class that come in and pay you half of 
an old account and ask for discount. Have you 
ever visited any of them ? ” 

Never ; I’m a shopkeeper.” 

Ah, well. I’ll tell you, just as I see it ; but it’s 
not as I write it — the leisured life in gardens with a 
peacock on the lawn. That’s the dashed thing,” 
he swerved in his intention, got back to his own 
grievances ; “ my puppets are for the amusement 
of these people. I am a kind of soother. I am in 
the same world as the man who massages them, or 
their Turkish-bath man, or their coiffeurl^^ 

Nonsense ! They don’t treat you like that.” 

‘‘ Not quite — they want rather to pet than to 
patronise. They say : ‘ We have read your last 
book and have been charmed.’ But I know. I 
would fain say : ‘ I am your humble jester.’ ” 

“ I wish you would get to what’s worried you in 
Solway.” 

“ What has worried me ? It is the unpublishable 
fact that I am a whore, a prostitute. That has 


204 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


worried me. I have been to half a dozen ‘ at homes ’ 
in Solway since Pve seen you and — oh, fame ! — 
they seemed all to know me — the people at them, 
ril tell you the kind of people. It is hardly likely 
that high literature can be appreciated by a society 
that drinks wine — my dear man, it’s a solemn fact — 
till it is bleary. I’ve seen whole rooms of people 
playing cards, or talking — and music being played — 
and wine going round — and all bleary, sir — bleary ; 
and all dressed, oh, all dressed ! And I know the 
men. I’ve seen them. Oh, worse — I’ll tell you 
that too. I’m read by blase, immoral men, who 
perhaps lighten their immorality by pseudo-ad- 
vancedly calling it ‘ a-moral ’ ; by women who, 
preparing for their ‘at homes,’ have to see not to 
the cleanliness only of their underwear but to the 
bows and ribbons on it (and what librarian would 
allow that truth to be told !) lest some other woman 
should flaunt more lingerie than they, and they be 
unable to vie with her in that respect. There’s no 
getting away from that. They are humbugging 
and hypocritical. Prettiness they see and can’t see 
beauty — hence such a phrase as I heard one lady 
laughingly fire off. ‘ What a good girl So-and-so is,’ 
said someone. ‘ Yes,’ said this lady, ‘ she’s rather 
plain, you see.’ And I looked at the girl they were 
staring at and found that she was not pretty, but 
beautiful. And she was the only girl in that room 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


205 


whose garters I could not give you the colour of. 
They’d call her mock-modit%t^ I suppose. You see, 
they are slightly educated and know phrases to lie 
with. I think they hate her.” 

‘‘ Or envied her ? ” suggested Haskell. 

“ I hope,” and Henry beamed, “ that it was 
envy — that is more hopeful.” 

He considered that new thought a space and 
then went on, looking a little more relieved : 

What I was going to say is that, when these 
people read, any so-called refinement they may seek 
must be a refinement, as it were, of lingerie, not 
the other refinement, which is strength. I know 
I’m called a literary man, a man of letters, a man 
with a decent style. It’s worse than if I wrote 
Molly Macquire, the Mill Maiden of Pillport, for 
The Peofles"^ PerodicaL That sort of thing gives 
— which should please you — a worker a little for- 
getfulness. But as it is, I’m a gold-tipped cigarette ; 
I’m a box of chocolates — the high-toned kind with 
alcoholic and sickening stuffs inside ; I’m a high- 
heeled slipper with a silver buckle ; I’m the pendant 
tassels on a society lady’s drawers ; I’m an aigrette ; 
I’m a swinging chatelaine ; I’m a scent-bottle and 
a powder-puff ; in short, my dear Haskell, I’m a 
bawd. The only consolation that I can get in 
the reading line for myself, the only ease I can 
get in the reading way, is in Shakespeare’s sonnet : 


2o6 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


“ ‘ Tired with all these for restful death I cry ; — 

As, to behold desert a beggar born, 

And needy nothing trimmed in jollity. 

And purest faith unhappily forsworn. 

And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, 

And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted. 

And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, 

And strength by limping sway disabled, 

And art made tongue-tied by authority. 

And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill. 

And simple truth miscalled simplicity, 

And captive good attending captive ill : 

Tired with all these, from these would I be gone. 

Save that, to die, I leave my love alone/ ” 

Haskell looked with great wide eyes on our 
author. I think he was glad he was a bookseller 
and not a book writer. 

‘‘Yes, I know what you mean. You must feel 
bad,” said he. 

“ Bad ! What makes me feel so very bad is the 
last knock I have had. At each of these ‘ at homes ’ 
I tell you of there has been a man, Dodge — Tommy 
Dodge they call him. He rather hung on to me 
as a literary man himself ! He’s ” 

“ I know. He’s editor of the Solway Sewer^"^ and 
Haskell snorted. “ Hung on to you ! ” 

“ Yes. He writes songs, I hear, music by So-and- 
so, words by T. D. Dodge. He’s presented me 
with a copy of one of his volumes. He’s a great 
favourite with all the ladies. You know the way 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


207 


he jumps about, and bows, and draws erect, and 
fires compliments, and when he sees they don’t go 
down, veers round on the other tack. I don’t 
understand the married women. They seem to 
like him sitting at their feet.” 

Haskell was staring. He felt that something bad 
was coming. He was glad he was only a shopkeeper, 
after all, not of the leisured class. 

“ Go on,” he said. ‘‘ Do you know all about 
him ? You certainly see things. You observe.” 

‘‘You know ? ” cried Henry. 

“ Go on, and I’ll see if I know, by living here, 
what you know just popping in on us.” 

“ All right. It’s this — he left along with me 
last night. He had been carrying cake to Mrs. 
Jones and turning the music for her, and he sang 
one of his own songs about a lady’s handkerchief, 
which he wished he was. Then he sat down again 
in a ring of ladies, all sitting with their toes pointed 
at him and gently moving and twiddling. I won- 
dered if I was prurient. I didn’t like the way he 
looked at the women. They didn’t seem to see 
anything wrong, so I fancied I must be prurient. 
They sat, with one leg over the other, laughing 
and talking, and their slippers slipping off a bit — 
oh, damn ! Haskell, I’m not prurient.” 

“ Go on.” 

“ Well — this Tommy Dodge came down with 


2o8 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


me. He was clearly a favourite. I heard someone 
say what a decent little fellow he was. We were 
not a dozen yards down towards town when the 
factory girls, going home, began passing us — those 
that live up in that row of cottages, you know — 

and ” 

“ What ? ” 

They all knew him.” 

“ How ? ” 

‘‘ In different ways — thank God. Some winked 
to him, some said, ‘ Hullo, Tommy ! ’ others threw 
up their heads and glared at him. They are primi- 
tive but ” 

Haskell quoted : “ ‘ The colonel’s lady and 

Judy ’ ” 

“ Don’t quote that ! ” cried Henry. 

‘‘ No — it’s not quite true. It’s a half truth,” 
said Haskell. I’m sorry.” 

‘‘ Thanks. Well — there was one of the girls 
quite young. Do you know what this curled 
darling said about her ? ” 

“ Something filthy.” 

“ Indeed it was. I must tell you that just as 
we met these girls he calmly remarked : ‘ That 
Miss Robinson up there is an innocent little thing. 
Sweet, simple, unsophisticated. She’d need gentle 
handling to break in, I should think.’ I didn’t like 
the way he said it, but made no reply. He turned 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


209 


about after ogling the young factory girl, she, 
giving no response, just walking on looking 
straight ahead, and said — no, I can’t tell you ! I 
can’t tell you ! He took it for granted, oh, God ! 

he took it for granted that I Took it for 

granted, do I say ! Why the man never dreamt 
that I mightn’t like that sort of talk. I thought 
to fell him to the ground. Instead, I held myself 
together and said quietly, to see if he had a decent 
spot to touch at all : ‘ Her figure somehow re- 
minds me of that Miss Robinson.’ ” 

Lord ! What did he say ? ” 

Say ! Why he turned his dancing eyes to me 
and gave a leer and began appraising her figure — 
for its innocence and freshness, as he called it. Oh, 
why — why — oh, to hell with him ! ” 

‘‘ Put him in a book ! ” said Haskell. 

‘‘ In a book ! ” cried Henry. ‘‘ I don’t write 
about life at all. He’s not for a book of mine. 
There are some men write only of the under- 
world of life in books ; hideous, gripping books ; but 
one feels they can’t be true. He’d do for them. 
But life is not all that. Then there are some men 

write of only the ideal side ” 

‘‘ Like your books ! ” 

Mine ! Oh, mine are fairy tales ; they’re too 
airy and dainty to call them even the happy side 
of life. What I should like to do is to write a book 


o 


210 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


about life as it is, dark and bright, proportioned as 
like life as possible. I don’t think that would be a 
bad book, or a book that anyone worth listening 
to would ask me to cut bits out of ; for I believe 
in Emerson’s phrase — ‘Light is greater than dark- 
ness.’ But I don’t know — oh, I don’t know ! If I 
did write like that I suppose I’d be read by a certain 
section for the dark parts alone ; and those who 
don’t wish to look on the dark parts (and they have 
my sympathy) perhaps would feel that I marred 
the fine parts by these dark parts. Oh,” he broke 
out, “ I wish to God I knew ! I wish I could feel 
myself writing something of value to art and life — 
not just writing relief from tedium. Still, I’d 
rather write to do that than to titillate idle women 
or to titillate soldiers and sailors and serving-girls, 
whose classics are Maria Monk and certain parts 
of Holy Writ. The worst shock I got of late, in 
thinking of art, was to see that girl May reading — 
what think you ? — Hardy’s ^ess. What did she 
get there ? Oh, if only I was sure that in the main 
I’d be read for good ! ” 

“ ‘ Light,’ ” suggested Haskell, “ ‘is greater than 
darkness ’.” He paused. “ I remember once how 
I felt when my sister was out somewhere and that 
Dodge convoyed her home. He goes everywhere. 
She said he had been so charming, so courteous to 
her. I was sick. I could have vomited to think 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


21 I 


of his courtesy. But she soon said, one day : ‘ I 
don’t like Tommy Dodge.’ She had seen him again, 
I suppose, and his courtesy had turned into some- 
thing that she felt was unpleasant.” He paused 
again, and then : I often wonder what would 

happen if the girl he is engaged to be married to 
should ” 

“ What ! ” cried Henry, engaged to be ” 

and he stuck. “ Oh, no more, Haskell, for God’s 
sake, or I shall pray the High and Mighty Gods, if 
They do exist, to give me not for certain (if there 
be such a thing as an after state), to give me not 
an after life in it — but just death, death and no 
waking — never any more knowledge of aught — for 
I, too, am a man built as this creature we have 
been discussing.” 

‘‘ Cheer up ! Cheer up ! ” cried Haskell. “ I 
don’t agree with the proverb that we are all John 
Thomson’s bairns.” Henry had a quick flash of 
light in his eyes — remembering that night at Jukes’s. 

The very state you are in, because of having seen 
that set in Solway, shows that we are not all John 
Thomson’s bairns. And — take my tip — a good 
many girls do loathe Tommy Dodge, but they 
speak civilly and sweetly to him because they see 
what he is so well that they’d be disgusted with 
themselves for sitting on him — it would look as if 
he needed sitting on.” 


212 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


‘‘ Oh, what a relief, Haskell ! ” cried Henry. “ I 
hope you really believe that ! I hope it’s true ! 
And, no — as you say — ^we’re not all John Thomson’s 
bairns. Some of us have ‘ lain burningly on the 
divine hand.’ ” 

And then both turned about suddenly and faced 
the door, for a voice said ; 

‘‘ What a phrase ! Who said that ? Is it your 
own, may I ask — or where shall I find it ? ” 


XXXII 



‘HE voice that came in on them was that of 


a youth who stood smiling in the doorway ; 


as to his face, it was like that of Chopin ; as 
to his carriage, unaware of his arrival, and at first 
sight of him, beholding him full in the doorway, 
he standing there a little smiling, radiant, expec- 
tant, Henry thought that he was somehow like a 
flower. 

Henry looked at him with a special joy — and had 
an indescribable sense as of already knowing him, 
though perfectly sure they had never met — knew 
him, knew he was the manner of man for him ; 
and also that some people would think this man 
effeminate because of that face — and that form 
reminiscent of a birch tree or, as I said, of the 
slim, stately delicacy of flowers. 

Haskell met the new-comer with a kind of 
reticent, constrained exuberance ; and then stood 
in an off-hand fashion after the hand-shake. Henry, 
taking note, knew they were friends. 

Let me introduce Mr. Queen,” said Haskell, 
“ Mr. Henry. I have spoken to you of Queen,” he 
added to Henry ; and to Queen, as the two shook 


213 


214 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


hands : ‘‘ I have written to you of Bliss Henry 
being here.” 

The sensitiveness of the face told Henry that 
this must be the musician friend that Haskell had 
mentioned ; not, he fancied, the famous composer 
of great scope, who ran down now and then from 
Glasgow, but he to whom the piano was as an 
altar. 

And he it was. And these three were all sud- 
denly at peace and had the feeling of tasting a great 
moment in their lives. 

“ Why, it’s late I ” said Haskell, aware of the 
silence, and walking towards the front shop. 

“ Yes,” said Queen, ‘‘ I noticed the tables were 
all covered over for the night out there.” 

‘‘ Come along home ; come along home. All 
right, boy. You can go. I’ll lock up. Come along 
you two,” said Haskell, and seemed eager to be 
gone. 

I say,” said Queen gently, ‘‘ I wonder if your 
boy would care to go to the station for my bag. 
I have the left luggage ticket.” Henry was re- 
minded of his own arrival in Solway. I left my 
bag till I could find if ” 

“ As if you didn’t know that always you can 
put up with me.” 

The round-faced boy, waiting outside the door 
with his ‘‘ penny dreadful ” (purchased not, of 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


215 


course, from his master, who did not sell such 
books, but from a shop in a side lane, a funny- 
little shop, with two long pipes in the window, old 
chocolate losing its gloss, and two shapes of potted 
head), the jolly, laughing, old-fashioned youngster 
bobbed forward, with his old-young face a-grin, and 
touched his cap, piped : ‘‘ Yes, sir, with pleasure.” 
Evidently he knew Queen of old, liked him. The 
three all smiled at the boy’s eagerness. 

“ All right,” said Haskell ; ‘‘ Mr. Queen will 
give you the ticket.” And then again, “ Come 
along.” 

“ Here you are, Cupid,” said Queen, handing 
the ticket. 

And then the three went home. 

It was one of the greatest evenings in Bliss 
Henry’s life in Solway ; and one such evening atones 
for a hundred others, and inspires for a hundred 
to come. To chronicle the sayings of a Tommy 
Dodge is comparatively easy ; but who can chronicle 
silences ? The silences were the chief beauty of 
that night. They were not the aggravating, watch- 
ing, furtive silences of such an one as Tommy 
Dodge — if ever he was silent ; they were the 
silences of rest. His silences were more holdings 
of breath. 

Haskell, once or twice, before he understood that 
Henry and Queen had already — as he would have 


2i6 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


expressed it — cottoned, tried to make talk ^ but 
that endeavour was as unnecessary as it was 
futile ; the quiet Queen did not have his almost 
absent-minded-looking air at all changed, made no 
leap into talk in response to these efforts of his 
friend. 

“We were talking of Tommy Dodge,” said 
Haskell after a long lull. “You have met him, 
have you not. Queen ? ” 

“ I have evaded him oftener,” said Queen. 

Haskell laughed. 

“ Mr. Henry and I were talking of him this 
evening,” said Haskell. 

“ You’re not going to any more, I hope,” said 
Queen. 

Haskell laughed a short, joyous laugh of friend- 
ship. 

“ Won’t you play ? ” asked Henry, seeing Haskell 
eyeing the piano then. 

“ If you wish,” said Queen, and passed to the 
instrument. 

Henry was amazed at the change that came over 
Queen between the chair on which he had been 
sitting and the piano-stool. He had been sitting 
like a drooping lily ; and when he said, “ If you 
wish,” he became a little more erect, his easy and 
graceful looseness departed and his graceful model- 
ling showed ; he rose, not suddenly, but as with 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


217 


leisure ; Henry thought it was as if he cast some- 
thing from him, or took something to him, or 
both — the man who rose seemed not the man who 
had been sitting there. Certainly now, thought 
Henry, not even the undiscerning would hasten to 
label him effeminate. 

And the amazing change went on. As Queen 
stepped to the piano Henry observed that he had 
shoulders, and a pliant back. As Queen stretched 
his hand and arranged the stool our author noticed 
that the musician had wrists, supple, strong wrists, 
such, thought he, as one sees in artists and cow- 
boys. Queen sat down squarely, stretched his arms 
out a little so that his sleeves left his wrists more 
free. 

Then suddenly, sudden now if you will, as if 
by some last touch of the strong artist’s soul within 
on the visible body, that body that changed at the 
spirit’s dictates. Queen seemed to have changed to 
a broad-shouldered, large-made man — and then the 
music began. 

It was a music that Henry knew, a favourite 
music, too, by the way, of that friend of whom he 
had thought, in this room, once before. Therefore, 
as it was being played, something in his breast 
stirred ; and he wished that she was here to hear 
it rendered so. She would like to be here. She 
would appreciate this man who played. Yes ; he 


2i8 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


was sure she would like Queen and Queen would 
like her — and then he sat listening. 

When the music was over, played as certainly 
few could play it, Queen sat still and, looking up 
at a corner of the ceiling, spoke to Haskell over his 
shoulder. Haskell caught Henry’s eye, read his 
face, saw signs on it that Henry had observed more 
than the execution of this artist, signed to him to 
take another chair, pointing also to his own face 
as he did so and twitching an eye toward Queen. 

Look at his face,” he signalled. 

Henry wondered. But he knew at any rate from 
that mute aside, that the change on Queen was 
visible to others, no fancy of his own, and that 
Haskell had watched to see if he observed it. 

As Haskell signed. Queen stirred uneasily — was 
about to turn. 

“ Will you play the March Funebre ” ? asked 
Haskell, dropping his eyes. 

Queen turned to Henry. 

‘‘ Perhaps you think it a depressing and morbid 
work ? ” 

“ No, neither. I think it one of the most healing 
of musics.” 

Queen bowed and looked a moment far off as he 
turned again to the keys. 

Henry gently rose and took a chair by the wall. 
Queen looked before him, upward a little, over the 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


219 


piano, at the wall. When he had turned about to 
the room he had seemed to be again what some 
might call effeminate ; a loose strand of hair was 
over his high forehead, his face had the suggestion 
of delicacy. But as he raised his head the strand 
fell back — and again came that amazing change. 
His hands fell on the keys and the great ode, as 
Henry esteemed it, putting it in the same world 
as Crashaw, and Patmore, and parts of Words- 
worth’s one ode, had begun. 

The music came directly into our author’s heart 
— but he was also interested in Queen, whose face, 
he observed, had changed, even as he had observed 
the form change. Before, it had been a face 
somehow delicate ; now it was of a stern cast. 
And here was no illusion. He glanced to Haskell 
and their eyes exchanged question and answer : 
‘‘ See it ? ” — “ Yes ! It’s amazing.” Then he averted 
his gaze from the player and let the music only 
be his interest. 

Time went on, with music, and a little talk, and 
long pauses of quiet. 

“ I wondered if you had come to Solway to 
play at the concert,” said Haskell. I thought 
it hardly possible, but fancied perhaps you had 
been moved by considerations that Solway had 
some claim on you — as you were once long ago — 
remember ? ” 


220 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


“ Yes. But Solway has none,” said Queen. No 
— I was not aware that there was to be a concert 
in my native town. I just came down to see it 
and — not all the people in it ; one or two. Be- 
sides — one can’t play to the people of Solway.” 

“ How do you mean ? ” asked Henry’s elevated 
brows. 

“ They turn music into something of the devil,” 
said Queen. He turned to Haskell for confirmation. 

Haskell nodded, and studied him. 

“ Not but what I have played in Solway,” said 
Queen, years ago, once, twice, as a duty. I’m 
afraid duties are only for the depraved. I’m not 
depraved, I believe.” 

‘‘ You’re one of those for whom impulses are 
more than duties ? ” Henry suggested easily. 

Queen smiled. 

‘‘ It’s not a doctrine for all men ; but for those 
who generally do their duty the impulse is worth 
listening to. And I am impelled not to play to 
Solway,” said Queen. 

Can you explain the impulse, or do you just 
obey without questioning ? ” asked Henry ; and 
Quarle Queen perceived he was interested, not in- 
quisitive. 

“ Obey without questioning ? ” he said and con- 
sidered. “ No ; I question till I get answer definite 
enough to satisfy me. I don’t probe to the heart 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


221 


of the mystery. But I get a sufficient explanation 
from the impulse when I ask it why. And the 
reason I don’t play to Solway is that, when I played 
to Solway, my music seemed devilish, somehow. I 
listened to it, to my own playing, with Solway’s 
ears ; and I didn’t like it. It was horrific,” he said ; 
but the strong word was spoken quietly, his manner 
again almost languid, some might have said. ‘‘ I 
don’t ask further than that. I’m not analytic 
enough,” and he looked in our author’s eyes sweetly. 
‘‘Too much of such analysis is apt to make one 
strained, I think. I won’t play to Solway — just 
as I could conceive a woman saying, if once she 
went into what is called ‘ society ’ in Solway, ‘ I 
shall not go back there again.’ And I wouldn’t 
ask her to state to me exactly why she made that 
resolve. I’d know by her voice that she was right ; 
and wouldn’t,” he smiled, “ ask how I could pos- 
sibly know by her voice. I believe in these things. 
I live by them.” 

I had wondered how to give an idea of the peace 
and strength of this evening, an evening that atoned 
to our author for the one of which he told Haskell 
with such horror. I had thought to leave a blank 
page, not even so much as to note any of the talk. 
I had thought to leave just a white page, signifying 
silence and the rest of it. But Laurence Sterne 
once left an unprinted page (a marbled page) in a 


222 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


book, and so I may not. It has been done already, 
the untrue critic in me would say. But this is 
different, the sensible critic in me would reply. 
There is a possibility of that looking droll, or some- 
what so, and the night was not droll, the judge, 
summing up, would say to the thirteen good and 
true critics in me. 

You understand — you know that what I want to 
tell I can only tell by implying — the peace that was 
in that room, the quiet. 

It was as if these three men had come from the 
same world and would, after this life, return to it, 
and meet there again. Tommy Dodges did not 
matter. The silences of Quarle Queen were greater 
than the sound of Tommy. And, by the way — to 
hark back — if I had put a blank page in here it 
would have looked as if, though what Tommy said 
could be told, what was said and played, and left 
unsaid at Haskell’s, that night, could not be told — 
or I mean that Solway might “ cutely ” see that 
could be said — and say it. Oh, dear me! What 
an evening that must have been, of which one 
can’t say a word I And, oh, dear me — how tangled 
one’s brain does get in trying to be true to oneself 
and keep from running foul of Solway too ! 

It struck Henry anon that he was selfish to stay 
on so long when these old friends might wish to 
talk of old days alone, and he rose. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


223 


“ I know your books,” said Queen then, not 
earlier. 

‘‘ He likes them,” said Haskell. 

“ Yes,” said Queen, “ if I may say so. I like 
their atmosphere, their music, their whiteness, if 
you know what I mean — if I express myself, I 
mean. The story doesn’t interest me much in 
either ; you don’t mind me saying that. And your 
characters are dressed as for the stage — I suppose 
you must do that. I suppose you have to give 
your public a story, and dress it. But I have read 
your books several times ; it’s the singing bits that 
come in here and there I like to read ; the bits on 
lawns, with birds and dew and so on, I often turn 
to in certain moods ; they’re coloured a bit, a 
little bit like light opera — but it’s good light opera 
scenery, and it has something else — something of 
air and sweetness and happiness. I read these bits 
when I want freshening, when I ” 

‘‘ When you’ve met beasts ? ” suggested Henry, 
Solway on his back, his black dog. 

Queen, considering, twisted his thin-lipped mouth 
a little. 

‘‘ I’m not introspective,” said he ; “ it doesn’t 
suit me — I can’t just say — but I often like to get 
the spirit of these parts. I often read snatches of 
your books, as I say. I like them. There are parts 
that remind me of Chopin’s Nocturnes.” 


224 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


‘‘ Thank you,” said Henry, and held out his hand 
and they smiled in each other’s eyes. 

They never met again. 

But 


XXXIII 


B liss henry rose up early in the morning 
and had a cold tub and was seated at his 
table working while yet the pigeons, wheel- 
ing over Solway and over the fields (he noticed 
them when he paused and looked up and out, seek- 
ing a word), were wondrously lit under their wings 
with a light that told of morning. 

The voices of the sparrows that chirped in the 
High Street told him it was early, for they had a 
sharp, reverberant sound, echoing from the stone 
of the old houses like actual tappings of tiny metallic 
hammers. The far-off rattle of carts on the Carlisle 
road told him it was morning. The great fields of 
corn and sun down there, beyond the wakening 
town, with its blue roofs and new grey-blue smoke 
that went up with that odd appearance of not 
being sure about how smoke should go out of a 
chimney, were of morning. The ridge of the high 
moors, when he bent and looked sideways up-street, 
he perceived with joy, blue and shimmering in the 
pristine light of morning. His heart — it was of 
eternal morning. He had met a fellow. He had 
found himself not alone, an exile on this planet ; 
p 225 


226 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


and joyfully he resumed his writing of the joyous 
doings of his puppets, doings a little bizarre of his 
hero, a little dollish of his heroine, but all in the 
atmosphere of joy that made the charm ” of his 
work. He worked all day, with just the pauses 
for meals and short walks and, a little tired, but 
not at all irritable, looked out on the stars at night 
before going to bed — content in his life and in 
his calling. 

Next day was a repetition of that one, and in 
the evening he went again to see Haskell. 

“ You liked Queen,” said Haskell. 

Liked him ! Indeed I did,” said Henry with 
that deep cadence in his voice so different from 
the high note of drawing-room stereotyped appre- 
ciation. Had he even said ‘‘ he was charming ” in 
such a tone the hearer would have known that he 
meant it. 

“ He liked you,” said Haskell. 

‘‘ I wonder,” said Henry, ‘‘ if he would come 
up to my place some evening ? ” 

“ He’s gone.” 

‘‘ Gone ? ” 

Yes ; yesterday. He came down chiefly for 
his girl— they’re off together, quietly smiling; 
there’s no church marriage for him— and the rector 
permitting him to have the church decorated and 
turned into a reception hall for a morning and 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


227 


then coming to the marriage breakfast and telling 
vulgar stories to the knot round him. No ; he 
and she just went quietly off.” Haskell laughed. 

“ What’s his girl like ? ” said Henry, for some 
reason that he did not probe to put a name on. 

“ I don’t know if you know her — a Miss Robin- 
son.” 

‘‘ Yes ; I’ve met her. Why, she ” and our 

author paused. 

“ What ? ” 

“ She’s the girl I liked so much at the Jones’s ‘at 
home.’ I thought her the only decent girl there. 
She’s ” he stuck. ^ 

“ What ? ” 

“ Tommy Dodge spoke of her — said he liked 
innocent charm too, or something like that. I 
don’t think I told you — he made me so sick. 
Wouldn’t Queen be mad if he knew ? ” 

“ I expect Queen, if he heard, would say just : 
‘ Oh, is that so ? ’ and then look away off in that 
absent-minded fashion of his — and never another 
word ; you wouldn’t even know he had been 
ruffled.” 

“ I’d be mad for the girl’s honour, I should 
think,” said Henry. And then : “ Dear me ! Here 
am I who know that not what others say of us, 
not how they look at us matters at all, and that, as 
Marcus Aurelius said, ‘others can talk and act as they 


228 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


please, I must be an emerald and I must keep my 
colour,’ and yet I go tormenting myself because a 
mere nothing has said a fatuous, evil thing ! Um ! 
I’m glad you tell me more of Queen like this. 
I’m glad I’ve met him.” 

He stood staring before him and his eye lighted 
on a book — the Jeremy Taylor he had once before 
handled — an old, clean Jeremy in half-calf, with a 
spaced title and a rich black type on the old, sacred 
paper. 

‘‘ I say,” he said, ‘‘ I think I’ll take this, please, 
and if you’ll give me a pen I’ll inscribe in it to 
him.” 

Haskell gave a bow, the meaning of which Henry 
could not fathom at the moment, and dipped a 
pen and handed it to Henry. 

“ Quarle Queen. In memory of an Eternal 
evening — from Bliss Henry,” 

wrote Bliss Henry in his quaint caligraphy. 

“ Will you forward it to him ? ” he asked in a 
casual voice. 

Haskell went to his desk and took out a little 
packet. 

‘‘ That’s for you,” he said. 

It was a book. It was a Marcus Aurelius. He 
took it a little blankly, wondering. He opened it. 

“ To Bliss Henry, from Q.Q.” he read, “ be- 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


229 


cause of the evening of ” and the date. His 

eyes were moist and shining when he raised his 
head. 

He thought of Q.Q. and Miss Robinson speeding 
away together out of Solway. 


XXXIV 



'HE stage setting was very much like that of 


one of Bliss Henry’s own books. There 


was a house beyond the rhododendron 
bushes, looking through the trees — the back of the 
house, with French windows, and lattices thrown 
back against the blue-grey walls. There were 
people straying here and there on the lawn rear- 
ward, and one saying, Isn’t it a sweetly pretty 
day ? ” and another replying, Isn’t it ? — prettily 
sweet.” 

It was an opportunity for Henry to transmogrify 
as usual. Here was the setting for one of his books 
of “ charm,” with its ineffectual hero loving, and 
hiding his love ; and dreaming quixotic dreams ; 
and doing dear, extravagant things. 

“ The opalescent sheen of August ” — “ the light 
sifted through the feathery trees.” Even a butter- 
fly went obligingly past and ‘‘ rested, breathing 
with its wings ” — sweetly pretty, prettily sweet. 
Here were men in striped summer things and ladies 
— “ magic penumbra ” — “ sweet garden scents ” — 
“ haze ” — “ crystal clearness ” — “ chiffons.” Yes, 
there was a setting here just to his own hand. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


231 


Miss Jukes was home again and summer was 
clearly come, and Bliss Henry had been invited 
again to ‘‘ The Laurels.” 

‘‘Was it Fox snubbed Pitt or Pitt snubbed Fox 
when the one, or the other, remarked to the other 

— you know what I mean ” and Miss Jukes 

laughed gaily and ruffled in her chair. 

“ Yes ; we know,” said the colonel ; “ never 
mind the dates and the characters, let’s have the 
argument.” 

“ — remarked to the other, or the one, that ‘ in 
the society I move in we do not discuss a guest 
when his back is turned ’ ? I wonder which it 
was.” She turned to Henry. 

“ I really don’t know — I’m not a politician,” he 
apologised. 

“ Well, it doesn’t signify so long as the phrase 
was said. But really, I must say — do look at Miss 
Montague. What a picture she makes on the 
lawn ” 

“ We must get a sundial,” said the colonel, 
bantering. 

“ An old one,” said Miss Jukes seriously. 

They looked at Miss Montague straying gently 
in her garden frock, her slender hand extended and 
dropping infinitesimal crumbs on the sward ; 
walking gently, her toe just visible, protruding 
from the gracefully falling frock. “ Peas ! Peas ! ” 


232 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


she crooned and dropped more crumbs, and the 
pigeons eyed her sidewise with tilted heads, and 
picked, and fluttered. She looked round and saw 
the watchers. 

‘‘ Aren’t they sweet ? ” she said. 

Henry thought she did certainly make a picture 
— she might have been out of a Harland story — 
or even out of one of his own ! 

“ I do like Penelope Montague,” said Miss Jukes. 
“ She is exquisite, queenly, sfirituelle and,” she 

added, ‘‘ she is a very clever girl. She reads ” 

She doesn’t smoke,” said the colonel, staring 
before him with that bulgy look that came in his 
eyes sometimes. 

“ Smoke ! Oh ! ” cried Miss Jukes. 

“ What do you say ? ” called Miss Montague, in a 
voice of ivory and velvet. 

Miss Jukes shook her head — then looked at her 
brother and saw the glitter. 

“ Oh,” she said, ‘‘ joking ! ” 

‘‘ I thought you called something to me,” said 
Miss Montague. 

Henry gave a little smile toward the colonel, 
whose gaze had a knowing slant toward him. 

“ Apropos : have a cigarette ? ” said Jukes, and 
passed his silver case. 

Henry sent out gently in the summer a blue 
feather of smoke and thought how this girl was 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 233 

she who had spoken of the blackbird dead in spring, 
which she had laid to rest under a daffodil — a 
flaunting, golden daffodil to match the yellow of 
his beak. She came toward them presently, toeing 
it slowly and swingingly across the lawn and sub- 
sided in a vacant chair with a rustle and gentle 
creak, her frock being of a rustling order and the 
chair of cane. 

Henry had a certain desire to be courteous, or 
knightly, to this lady of a beautiful phrase. 

The accidents, incidental to a garden at 
home,” were bringing them nearer, which was, 
after all, but fitting. Had they not already met 
now and then ? Might they not be better friends ? 
He had a desire to talk to this lady of the belles 
lettres^ and she gave him the opportunity in the 
shuffling of the talk. The others dropped out. 
Jukes forming a quartette for tennis. The click of 
a croquet mallet sounded from rearward. The 
pigeons cooed. They found themselves alone. 

Miss Montague rose and looked round her on 
the regal day. 

‘‘ Let’s stroll a bit,” she said. 

With pleasure.” 

So they strolled across the lawn, among the 
trees, wandered on up the hill beyond the house. 

‘‘ I do love the view from here,” she said. “ Shall 
we sit a little ? ” and she subsided with her sinuous 


234 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


grace on a great block of shining, granite-like rock, 
blue and grey. 

After they sat down the birds, that they must 
have flurried a little by their arrival, again took 
heart ; innumerable chirpings and bars of song 
shot about in the wood below. From overhead 
somewhere, in airy isolation, other notes dropped 
on them, a lark, up there in the sky that dazzled 
them looking for it, raining its silver rain of song 
on them as Henry would have phrased it in ^he 
Jafanese Fan^ writing also of the epiphanies of 
blossom and bud in the wood. 

“ Can you see it ? ” asked Penelope, looking up, 
and then quickly down on him, and suspecting 
that he had been gazing on her instead of into 
the sky, looking on her neck as her head was raised 
so. But no, he was blinking upward. 

‘‘ There ! ’’ he said. 

‘‘ Ah, yes,” she said, and looked a moment and 
was at once content, having found, returning her 
gaze to earth and swaying the long grass beside 
the boulder with her toe. 

‘‘ Do smoke,” she said. He saw a light in her 
eyes, the light that the leading characters in his 
books saw. Bliss Henry found that he did not like 
it. It repelled, not drew him. 

“ I believe Jukes told her,” he thought, smiling at 
thought of that jester, and then let the thought go. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


235 


“ Do you know Henry Harland’s books ? ” he 
asked presently. 

Yes — rather ! Why do you ask ? ” 

‘‘ I don’t know.” 

She looked keenly on him. Oh, she knew him 
all, absolutely. He was a shy man, she thought. 
She did not know how a discerning critic had said 
of Henry : ‘‘ When you meet men you are great ; 
when you meet clerks and mugwumps you are — 
eh — shy ! ” and then laughed at the ill-treated 
word. 

“ But I’m not reading fiction just now,” she 
said. “ I’m reading biography — it’s far more 
interesting — that’s life. Oh, I’ve been reading a 
book of love-letters — a delightful anthology. Can 
you understand two people meeting and just seeing 
each other once or twice and then writing to each 
other by their Christian names ? ” 

He did not seem interested. He looked round 
on her and she gleamed on him, and he wondered 
whither had fled the girl of the blackbird talk. 

Penelope, in her grey -blue confection of a 
material called, Henry believed, voile, leant back 
against the blue-grey granite boulder, gazing down 
the slope of grass, and seemed to muse a little, like 
one of his heroines. They could look down into 
the wood (like his leading man and leading lady) 
and see the sunlight, that found a way through 


236 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


the tree-tops, dapple the wood’s green and brown 
carpet (o£ sparse grass and brown earth) with patina 
of bright gold. In her grey-blue frock, her dark 
hair loose above her ears and straying on her brow, 
her grey eyes meditating, her lips smiling — and he 
thinking of her as the girl of the phrase about the 
blackbird dead in spring — Henry found her very 
engaging, very interesting. A soft wind fanned 
them ; her hair fluttered ; Bliss Henry felt, as he 
would have said in his Hhe Japanese Fan or Fhe 
Jewelled Snuff-box ^ something violent happen in 
his heart. But it did not affect him, this thing in 
his heart, as it affected his heroes. It was to him 
a warning, not a lure. He distinctly did not like 
it ; it seemed to him in the same world with Tommy 
Dodge. 

“ Oh — well, I daresay all things are possible,” 
he said ; “ I don’t think I could. I’m very slow 
with people.” He had been a little slow with his 
reply and she had wondered what was coming, but 
she had waited, smiling. 

He thought how long it had taken him to drop 
the “ Mr.” with one of his best friends. But not 
to appear a contradictor and disagreer he added : 

“ Perhaps in some cases I could understand it. 
Yes — it would be unusual, of course,” he said non- 
committally. 

She gave a silvery laugh. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


237 


“ I like unconventional people,” she carolled. 

He felt that that which had happened once again 
in his heart was what he had already called “ a 
damned magnetic stir ! ” 

“ When do you leave us ? ” she said, turning her 
face full on him. 

“ Very soon now — I’m afraid,” he said, staring 
ahead and speaking firmly. 

‘‘ Are you glad to go ? ” she said ; and he looked 
then full on her, so that she was almost startled. 

‘‘ Well, for some reasons, yes ; for others ” 

She let her gaze drift from him a little. He was 
thinking it was not worth while to say how he hated 
a deal of Solway. 

‘‘ I like the country,” he allowed. “ But, oh — 
well, that’s rude.” 

She had a frown suddenly. 

‘‘ Oh, go on. I’m not easily offended.” 

‘‘ It’s rude,” he went on, “ to malign the people 
that are your people, of course — but I don’t,” he 
thought her ‘‘ broad ” enough for him to say it, 

like Solway people much ; that’s what I was 
going to say.” 

Certainly their interests are a bit limited,” she 
agreed, one might almost say stiffly — compared with 
her former graciousness. 

“ Yes — ^you must also feel — I mean that I have 
felt now and then I’d give a deal to talk to some- 


238 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


body about something apart from — er — superficial 
party politics among the men, and absolutely noth- 
ing, absolutely nothing, with the women,” which 
was putting it very decorously. 

Pretty slow,” she said. “ I know — and fast 
too, sometimes,” she added, and shot a glance over 
his well-cut frame. “ You know the Jones’s, I 
believe,” she hazarded, switching her dress and 
looking up on him. 

“ I have visited,” he said. 

She scrutinised him, more coldly, almost cal- 
culatingly. 

You can be honest with me. You don’t like 
them — and their set ? ” 

“ I don’t. I don’t like the people one meets 
there. You don’t play bridge ? ” 

She gave him a wondrous look that made his 
heart know the damned magnetic stir ” again. 

“ No,” she said. ‘‘ I say — by the way — what 
sort of a man is that Mr. Dodge of that set ? ” 

“ Dodge ? ” He made a wry face. 

“ He seems — eh — an amorous youth,” she sug- 
gested. 

“ Amor ” he stuck. Loving ! Well ” 

the magnetism died. “ He’s ” he stuck again. 

“ Vulgar ? ” she said. 

“ Yes,” he exploded. 

“ I thought so,” she said, and settled at ease again. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


239 


‘‘ I’ve never met him. I had suspected that, how- 
ever.” She had the air of dismissing the matter 
and 

‘‘ You find few friends in Solway ? ” she asked. 

‘‘ I must not complain, I’ve introductions I 
haven’t used. I’ve only seen the people I’ve 
bumped into, as it were. But I will go the length 
of saying that I’ve sometimes, since coming here, 
felt a desire for occasional confirmation of my 
ideas ! ” 

“ I know,” she said ; I’m often lonely here. 
I’ve just wanted somebody in the glorious spring, 
when the sun is drawing the winter out, drop, 
dropping, from the smoky thatches, and to be able 
to spout to somebody who would feel it, Thomp- 
son’s lines about the spring : 

“ Spring has come home with her world wandering feet, 

And all things are made young with young desires.’’ 

He was very thoughtful suddenly, and she 
marked his brows and smiled. Really he had turned 
his light from her on to his dreams. He was think- 
ing : ‘‘ There is a developing capacity in this girl. 
I hope, for her sake, that she is strong enough to 
develop in loneliness.” 

“ It’s been very jolly meeting you anyhow,” she 
said. I like shy men ; ” she leant sidewise, for a 
change in position, supporting herself with stiff 
arm, white fingers spread on the rock. 


240 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


He reserved his whole thought. 

There’s a good deal to be said in their favour,” 
he laughed. 

“ I certainly see I judged you right from the be- 
ginning,” she said, looking full on him. ‘‘ I gener- 
ally am right at first.” She was quite at ease with 
him, he thought, and he was glad she was. He 
liked to be at ease with men and women — and 
know them so with him. Being thus at ease she 
came out with : I had a good idea how far one 
could go with you.” 

So she had not understood him, having her 
opinion of men ; nor he her, engrossed on his 
partial portrait of her. He had a gasp at that ; but 
she did not notice the gasp. 

He rose and answered fairly promptly, if lightly. 

“ With me ? Oh, I give people my whole self 
always. It saves mistakes. Often after Fve done 
it Fm sorry, for it hurts sometimes ; but I always 
continue, and what matter hurts like that so long 
as one is hurt oneself and, by so being hurt, pro- 
gresses ? ” 

She flicked her dress, rising, and they moved 
down from the knoll. 

She did not know quite what to say and gave 
another facet to him, one that had a steely glitter 
in it rather than any light. 

‘‘ But does one progress ? ” she said. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


241 


“ Rather ! ” he cried, as they bent under a spray 
of apple blossom and came again on the lawn where 
Jukes now lay smoking a cigarette, his tennis over 
because of his bad side. 

Croquet mallets still sounded ; also chatter — but 
added to their sounds was the more blissful tinkle 
of crockery being carried out to the garden for 
tea. 

Jukes eyed them, smiling from under his tilted 
panama. Miss Jukes had a glimpse of them and 
looked as if she hadn’t. 

“ Tea ! ” she cried. “ Tea, you tennis players.” 

“ I expect,” said Miss Montague, “ for all your 
ideas you touch our common humanity somewhere,” 
uttering the words half turned from him, moving 
away with her engaging, lissom beauty, and all 
her “ possibilities ” that he could not get at for 
the ‘‘ common humanity.” He was sorry — for her. 
He was a little piqued, for a moment, thinking how 
she would have her own ideas of him — and they be 
wrong ! Only later he observed that she carried 
a little chatelaine at her wrist, and that there were 
pendant ribbons to her hat. He wondered he had 
not seen the significance of these earlier, and fancied 
she would have a smiling contempt for a girl who 
carried a muff instead of a chatelaine. But he dis- 
missed her and his regrets when a whirl of white 
fantails went overhead and the birds alighted and 
Q 


242 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 

strutted on the green sward. He had learnt some- 
thing from Quarle Queen. 

He subsided beside Jukes. 

“ Have a cigarette ? said Jukes. 

“ Thanks.” 

He blew a feather of blue smoke into the summer 
air and watched it glitter and be dissipated in the 
bright day. 


XXXV 



HE next day Bliss Henry could not work. 


True, the book was near an end, and the 


whole plan of it still, as always, clear in his 
mind ; but something restrained him ; he could 
not write. Something without himself, or some- 
thing within, he could not tell which, would per- 
sist in checking his hand, damming the flow of the 
shining, debonair romance with its two central 
puppets and the few assisting ones. 

Had his view-point changed ? Had he changed, 
that his book should seem so difficult P Or was it a 
thought of those who would read, reading him not 
for what he meant to say but for what they sup- 
posed he said, that made him glum ? He knew 
Queen had helped him ; he knew Queen had made 
the puppets live again, and he had been grateful 
to Queen ; but now he had no thought of blaming 
anyone for the horrific unanimous swoon of his 
puppets. 

He knew only for certain that he was again 
deterred. At last he gave in, as many writers do, 
to the laziness, or atrophying spell, or whatever it 
might be, not vexing himself farther to inquire 


244 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


whether spell from without, or malady from within 
checked him, and went away south of the town, 
across windy moors, along winding roads. 

A great chirping in a hedge drew him to it and 
he looked through. Bright beady eyes peered up 
at him and he scrutinised closer. The beady eyes 
still peered up at him ; and then he saw a squirm 
of weasels in a nest of young birds — a hideous, 
bloody business. He thought it better to retire 
and give the weasels freedom speedily to finish 
the business they had begun. It was a hideous 
sight, the torn, chirping bodies, the chirping 
destroyers. 

“ After all,” he thought, ‘‘ why grieve ? The 
weasels, I presume, must live.” 

But the blue sky over him took a coldness, the 
fresh fields a hardness, the distant hills an aloofness. 

Though he had dismissed his inert puppets, they 
evidently unable, or unwilling, to help him in 
finishing charmingly their history, though he had 
dismissed them, they had been haunting him all 
the way, as if with rolling, fainting eyes. Now 
they ceased to haunt. And now something in him, 
apart from the puppets, found vent ; he drew 
forth his notebook and he wrote there, by the 
distressful wayside, his haunting (but to some in- 
comprehensible) lyric ‘‘You Believed in the Triumph 
of Passion.” 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


245 


He was gone till tea-time ; and after his return 
with the drafts of that song — and a rest and tea — 
he went over the criss-crossed lines of it in his 
notebook, giving it the final shape, the shape it 
has in his published volume : 

“ You believed in the triumph of passion ; 

But I, in the triumph of love, 

Who have loved you long time, though my fashion 
Of loving a vain thing must prove. 

As long as the call of maid’s passion 
Is stronger than calm of men’s love. 

“ I have wearied you now with my loving ; 

Cometh not what you thought might appear 
Through my love ; in the woodlands naught moving. 

No piping of Pan drawing near : 

Like the vast of the sky, my loving. 

Where no clouds, where no passions appear. 

“ Long since you had ceased prophesying 

‘ You will change in the change of the years.’ 

And to-day when you turned hence sighing. 

Your maiden eyes wet with maid’s tears, 

’Twas but Hope that had been prophesying, 

Y ou knew ; these were hopeless tears. 

“ And I knew that the Hope I had cherished, 

Long time, was as vain as your hope. 

My soul of no kisses had perished, 

Your soul had no door that might ope’ 

To the cry of my vain love, cherished 
As vainly as your mortal hope.” 


246 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


After it was finished he heard his puppets stir 
and, listening, heard their voices go on again. 
They had recovered from their unanimous swoon. 

To-morrow,” he thought, “ I shall attend to 
them. I have let the day go by and night is coming. 
I shall do nothing at all to-day to the book. It 
can rest.” 

The postman’s knock sounded ; and May, coming 
up with the letter, found our author before his open 
window staring out like a man in a trance. He 
turned leisurely, absently, and took the letter from 
the salver. 


XXXVI 


H IS face brightened at sight of the hand- 
writing, and he opened the letter with a 
sense of peace. He was now quiet, instead 
of dazed ; at ease, instead of inert ; peaceful, in- 
stead of distressed ; just a slight change — the sing- 
ing of a bird in a dead landscape, the sun coming 
out on a city wall — but it meant an immense 
difference. 

There was no leap at heart, no excitement, as 
he unfolded the letter. It was from that friend, 
mentioned three times already in this narrative ; 
a reply to his last letter to her, enclosing, besides, 
a setting to music of the lyric of the birds and the 
hills, and the rest, that he had sent her shortly 
after his arrival in the place of peace. She had 
been a long time about it, she wrote, but from 
the first reading had always wanted to do it — 
and here it was, and might it please him. Not 
that the words required music ! They were music. 

Henry tried to hum the air. He tried to sing it. 
But, though he could make music of words, he 
could not make music of music ; so he looked at 
his watch. 


247 


248 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


Yes ! Haskell would be even now on the point 
of going home, filing the loose letters, snapping 
shut the ink-pot. He would go round to Haskell’s. 
Haskell would sing it to him. 

He had a strangely elated feeling as he went 
down High Street, almost deified. A great river 
of wind, blowing into Solway from over the fields, 
was in his face. He swung down-hill with head 
sidewise lowered, to keep his head-gear on. His 
cheeks rejoiced with the freshness, and the lights 
of the town had a blurred glitter because of the 
wind in his eyes. 

He passed Tommy Dodge, and Tommy hailed 
him with : 

“ Hullo, old chap ! ” 

He passed on. 

Tommy ran after him, his showily cut water- 
proof fluttering about him, and caught Henry’s 
elbow. 

“ Hullo, old chap ! You’re not going to cut 
me, are you ? I had no idear you would do that ! 
You ain’t goin’ to cut me ? ” and his gay manner 
overflowed, familiar and ingratiating. 

Yes,” said Henry and passed on ; and Tommy 
Dodge stood with the weak vigour oozing out of 
him and looking oddly like a suit of excellently cut 
clothes, under a fluttering waterproof, hanging 
on nothing at all. If you had seen them then you 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


249 


would only have seen the clothes on Tommy and 
would not have remembered what Henry’s clothes 
were — only remembered the swinging form clad 
in glory. 

Perhaps it was the freshness of the night that 
made the thought of going indoors repellent, as 
if no good would come of being between walls in 
gaslight. Henry felt a premonition of disappoint- 
ment and spiritual disaster on the threshold, but 
flung out his joyousness against it. Such a feeling 
was not usual on Haskell’s threshold. Yet he 
thought that Haskell, rising to meet him when he 
was ushered in, seemed a little “ off colour,” and 
the brightness of the chamber seemed more glare 
than brightness. 

Haskell, on his side, was glad to see Henry ; but 
a part of him was annoyed, willy-nilly, at the 
author’s triumphant, monopolising dash upon him, 
like the breeze of the night. He made him wel- 
come, he seated him, he played the fragment, and 
sang it — but all still in that mood. And he found 
the music good, too, though he did not quite 
do it justice — and knew he didn’t — wondered if 
he really tried to. He turned from the piano, 
nevertheless, much refreshed ; but, perhaps a 
little tired from the day, such is our droll nature, 
he acted still the mood in which Henry had found 
him. All of which means that Henry was a fresh 


250 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


man out of the wind and Haskell a tired man out 
of a bookshop. 

Henry, despite his self-centred mission, and his 
vigorous arrival, had been aware of Haskell’s un- 
wontedly, and then wilfully, unsympathetic de- 
portment, and had almost snatched the music away 
and said : ‘‘ No — not in that mood.” But the 
music, in the event, had proved itself greater than 
a mood. 

‘‘ By the way,” said Haskell, “ a lady has been 
asking for you to-day.” 

‘‘ A lady asking for me ! And who, I wonder, 
may she be ? ” 

“ Guess.” 

‘‘ I have no guess.” 

A Miss Fox.” 

“ Oh ! ” 

“ Aye. You may well say ‘ Oh ! ’ ” Haskell felt 
for his pipe. ‘‘ Here you have been taking in 
Solway for all you are worth — as an outsider ; and 
you have an introduction to two people and never 
gone to see either of them — for I don’t suppose 
you’ve been out to Sir Henry’s place yet ? ” 

No — and it was very decent of my publisher 
to give these introductions. I hope he isn’t hurt. 
But, man ! Do you know — I can’t tell why — but 
I do dislike introductions. If I could bump against 
the people by accident I wouldn’t mind ; but to 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


251 


go to see an unknown with a letter of introduction, 
like a birth certificate or a seaman’s discharge 
papers, well — one’s just got to like people then, 
and they’ve got to like us ; and if they don’t, or 
if we don’t, they, or we, have, for the sake of the 

introducer, to put up with ” 

“ With we or they ! ” said Haskell. Yes ; I 
understand you. But you talk as involvedly as 
Miss Jukes does when she comes in here and tries 
to talk with precision. Seriously, however, you 
should go and see both Miss Fox and Sir Henry 
Stubbs. Sir Henry has a better library than he has 
a kennel — which means much in this part of the 
borders. Miss Fox asked about you to-day ; she 
has heard that you often came in here, she said. 
She suggested, in her half-cynical, half-smiling 
way, that if you got lonely you might perhaps re- 
member your introduction. Your publisher has 
evidently written to her, you see, to look out for 
you.” 

I’d better go at once to call then — or she’ll 
think, when I do turn up, that it’s sheer melo- 
dramatic loneliness and no courtesy that brings 
me. 

I’d go, if I were you. You’d like her, I fancy. 
It’s odd, now I think of it, that I’ve not mentioned 
her to you before, for I’ve often thought of her 
choice of books.” 


252 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


She buys books ? ” 

“ Yes ; but don’t be falling in love with her 
now. Fm afraid you’re susceptible, Mr. Henry. 
Miss Montague, if I may say so, I think — well — 
charmed you a bit, eh ? And Miss Fox, I can 
assure you, is considered mighty charming. Fm 
afraid there’s a bit of dalliance in you.” Henry 
frowned, and Haskell saw and added : “ What, for 
instance, about your musical girl ? ” 

“ Musical girl ? ” said Henry. He had for some 
cause felt an insolence in the remark, but he thought 
of Quarle Queen and smiled and said again : 
Musical girl ? Who is she ? ” 

Haskell turned his arm and flipped the song 
where it leant on the piano. Henry didn’t like the 
gesture but — 

Oh ! ” he said, which could mean anything. 
And then he stared at Haskell with new eyes 
and thought he did not like Haskell’s expression ; 
so he dismissed from him his breezy dreaminess, 
focussed his eyes afresh, and looked on Haskell. 

“ I say,” he said ; “ that’s a queer way to talk 
of her. I bring up the music for you to do me a 
favour, to play it over for me as I cannot get it 
for myself. Have I hurt you somehow f You 
talk like a piqued young lady. If I’ve hurt you in 
any way, do say so ; don’t try to have a dig at me 
by labelling and limiting a friend and calling her 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


253 


a musical girl. It’s as if you said a musical box. 
Besides, she’s not solely a musical girl. The appella- 
tion is correct, of course — for she is a musical girl. 
But she’s also a lot of other kinds of girl that are 
worth being.” He did not stop there. He went 
on : “For you to call her a musical girl is less a 
labelling of hety than a criticism of yourself. It 
is as if you lit a little match that I could see you 
better,” and he did not stop there. He went on : 
“ Your label is, if only you knew, like the paper 
pinned on a great man’s coat-tails by a little rickety 
gamin in the street.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Haskell and looked up and glared — 
then he smiled. But then he bethought him of 
his mood ! Said he : 

“ You talk as if you disrespect women : ‘ Talk 
like a man,’ you suggest to me. ‘ Don’t talk like a 
woman.’ Is that it ? ” 

“ I meant,” said Henry, still smiling sweetly, 
“ ‘ Talk like a person who is not mean, whatever 
your sex, so to speak,’ if you will have it that way ! ” 
He gave a little laugh. “ There are mean men and 
there are mean women. But even a mean man, 
if hurt, does not try to get his own back by little, 
mean, grinning, polite digs that, oh, surely you canH 
take offence at I No, he doesn’t say, ‘ the musical 
girl.’ A remark like that, my dear sir, is for, as 
I said, and I say again, with emphasis now, a 


254 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


young lady. Not that it hurts me — only I ob- 
serve it.” 

Haskell looked round the room. 

“ I wonder,” said he, “ what’s wrong with me 
to-night ? You’re all right ; and I — I seem to be 
trying to make myself damnably objectionable.” 

“ Would you allow me,” suggested Henry, “ to 
open your window ? ” 

Haskell gave a new smile, rose, opened the win- 
dow, took a great breath of air ; then he turned 
again, after a silence, to his piano : 

“ This,” said he, “ is a piece of music that 
catches me.” 

He sat down ; this time, Henry remarked, in a 
fashion reminiscent of the way Queen approached 
the instrument. He stretched his hands to the 
keys and the music woke — and then his voice : 

“ I would go back to my own loved hills 
When 1 am dying, 

And die to the old, old voice of rills 
Where birds are flying. 

Flying and crying over the hills.” 


He finished, and both sat quiet. 

“ Yes,” said Haskell, “ the woman — or man,” 
and turning he smiled and bowed, “ who wrote 

the music for these lines — ^yours, I suppose ? ” 

Henry nodded — “ is more than musical. I hope I 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


25s 


didn’t hurt you when I — eh — labelled myself as 
mean, just now ? ” 

Henry shook his head long and gently, leisurely 
blowing smoke. 

“ No ; I assure you you didn’t. I would, I may 
say, had I not known you as a man, have been 
amused at the appellation. You didn’t hurt me 
except in the way that I was hurt for you. I had 
a horrible feeling that I was being disappointed in 
you ” 

He paused. 

‘‘ What are you thinking ? ” asked Haskell. 

“ I’m thinking that Queen would of a surety call 
me analytic, ridiculously analytic.” 

“ I don’t know,” said Haskell. ‘‘ He’d not say 
ridiculously anyhow. He might say analytic, of 
course. But he’d have felt me petty, I know, with- 
out having explained me to myself with such im- 
peccable precision and variety. Quarle Queen 
would just have gone home and left me to come 
round. For you were right,” said Haskell, “ I 
was in a petty mood and I did say that to hurt 
you — and I only hurt myself — behaving, as you 
remarked, like a piqued young lady, with a stress to 
signify the sense in which it is used, meaning a 
petty, mean, piqued person ” 

“ Irrespective of sex,” said Henry, in a mock 
declamatory manner. 


256 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


Haskell sat looking before him through his gleam- 
ing glasses. 

I say,” he said, “ if all men and women had 
your ideas, felt them strongly, felt your ideas and 

aims beyond a certain strength ” 

“ They’d give confirmation of them to each 
other,” said Henry assisting. 

“ Yes — oh, of course, and — dear me ! — ^yes, that 
confirmation would help in the speed with which 
such ideas of life spread ! But what I was going 
to say was that if all felt strongly the ideas you 
feel they’d cease — ^well, to procreate, I suppose, one 

may as well say, and ” 

‘‘ And what ? ” 

“ The race would die out.” 

Henry sat back easily. ‘‘ Yes, the body would, 
perhaps — the visible body might. Yes ; I sup- 
pose that’s logical.” 

“ You suppose it’s logical ! Why, it’s a thought 
you must have arrived at often, thinking as you do 
about things — seeing everything as you do.” And 
then more pause, and then quietly now, not as if 
in face of something terrible, but something peace- 
ful : ‘‘ The world would cease, man,” and he in 
his turn sat back quiet. 

‘‘ As most see it to-day, yes. But the more real 
Eternity is the less real seems Time. The more 
real the spirit the less real — ^well — Solway.” 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


257 


He sat thinking and then broke out with Thomp- 
son’s : 

“ Where is the land of Luthany, 

Where is the tract of Elenore ? 

I am bound therefore. 

“ Pierce thou thy heart to find the key ; 

With thee take 

Only what none else would keep ; 

Learn to dream when thou dost wake, 

Learn to wake when thou dost sleep. 

Learn to water joy with tears, 

Learn from fear to vanquish fears ; 

To hope for thou dar’st not despair. 

Exult for that thou dar’st not grieve ; 

Plough thou the rock until it bear ; 

Know, for thou else could’st not believe ; 

Lose, that the lost thou may’st receive ; 

Die, for none other way can^st live. 

When earth and heaven lay down their veil. 

And that apocalypse turns thee pale ; 

When thy seeing blindeth thee 
To what thy fellow-mortals see ; 

When their sight to thee is sightless ; 

Their living death, their light most lightless ; 

Search no more 

Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore.” 

‘‘ Very fine,” said Haskell. ‘‘ Very fine. It 
moves me. But who can live it ? ” 

Live it ? You talk as if it was a strain to live 
it. Do you think all the pull of the heart is 
toward the life we know just now — ^which is 

R 


258 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


typified in Solway ? The eternal pull is — 
believe me — far stronger than the mortal 
pull.” 

“ Oh, but you are different from other men.” 

“ In what way ? — though I didn’t say I was 
speaking of myself. But in what way ? ” 

“ Your tendencies are spiritual.” 

Oh ! Allow me to tell you, if we are speaking 
of me apropos my ideas — that my tendencies, as 
you call them, are — or were — toward a careless life, 
a jingling lyric instead of a sonorous, dignified ode. 
You remember what Socrates said of himself that 
way. There is a passage in Flaubert’s letters to 
the same tune, telling all the things he hankered 
to do and did not do. I don’t agree that ‘ we are 
what we are, and there ye be,’ as a drunk man said 
to me the other night. The men we look up to 
and admire have fought hard — and they have 
fallen ; I take that — their falls — as a sign that 
they did make themselves and were not made. If 
they had never faljen I might listen to the sug- 
gestions of the drunk moraliser that ‘ we are what 
we are, and there ye be ’ ; but no — a man has a 
good deal to do with the making of himself. 
Wasn’t it Holmes said that a man had the making 
of his mouth if of no other feature ? No, sir ! 
I’m not going to go back to the drunk moraliser 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


259 


in the gutter. That’s ancient history, I’ve passed 
that. Some may still be disputing in the gutter, 
but others are up on the heights, ‘ where 
Orpheus and where Homer are ’, and we must 
go on.” 

‘‘ Where are you going ? ” asked Haskell 
heavily. 

“ I don’t quite know. But I know what we’ve 
left — and, looking back, I wonder however it had 
even any interest for men at all.” 

‘‘ I wish I could follow you,” said Haskell. 

You believe, then, that I am going on ? ” 
said Henry, but I think he knew himself 
and was not asking for Haskell’s expression of 
belief as an aid, but wondering if Haskell 
had the capacity to believe that he was going 
on ! 

‘‘ I do. I believe you may even attain something 
— some spiritual world. I feel all that you say very 
deeply ; ” (Henry thought : He too, then, may 
go on.”) but — but — I know,” said Haskell slowly, 
“ that I’ll just say, ‘ Oh, what does it matter ! ’ 
and, despite all my ideas — ^well, they’ll be only 
ideas.” 

Henry would fain have helped Haskell farther, 
but he had a feeling that he must conserve his own 
energies. He wondered, in an aside of his mind, if 


26 o a Wilderness of Monkeys 

Queen was (after all) selfish to protect himself as 
he did. 

‘‘ Perhaps your children will make them more 
than that,” said Henry. 

Children ? ” 

“ ‘ Yours,’ I said, not ‘ mine.’ Oh,” he suddenly 
rose and looked up and flung abroad his hands, 

“ my children — my children — my children ” he 

waved his open palms to the open window. The 
night was far advanced. He could hear the river’s 
voice going on with its eternal song, the tree mur- 
muring of Eternity. 

“ I know I am at least happy, contented, but I 
am ashamed when you are here,” said Haskell, as 
though such quiet outbursts of a guest were every- 
day occurrences. “ When you go you leave an 
echo. I fear that when you go for good you will 
leave a regret.” 

A regret,” said Henry, ‘‘ is very close of kin to 
an inspiration. Oh, the Day will come. The Day 
will come.” 

“But where are you going — where are you 
going ? Are you not just going into the dark- 
ness ? ” 

“ No — into the Light.” 

“ How do you know ? ” 

“ By — for one thing, to mention no deeper and 
personal ones — looking at Solway, and then looking 


A Wilderness of Monkeys ' 261 

away at my dreams. And which is the more real ? ” 
he asked solemnly. 

Haskell listened to the silence. 

‘‘ Your dreams,” he said. 


XXXVII 


B liss henry was tidying his room. Some- 
thing had happened in his life. Seeds that 
he had sown in hard soil had shown green 
shoots ; cold winds had threatened the shoots, but 
they had thriven, and now it was as though the 
buds were bursting, the bloom showing. The 
world without seemed fairer, the tree in the little 
rearward court was a glad green in the well of 
sunshine against the red-bricked wall opposite. The 
landscape, seen from his front window, was glit- 
tering with sun and freshness. 

His airy front room had a cleaner atmosphere, 
and to make it still more restful and give to it 
more of the sacred freshness that it pleased him 
to have around him, home to him being more 
sanctuary than kennel, he discovered a duster 
somewhere and dusted his books, polished the 
glass of the prints and etchings on the walls. 

He looked some time at the Helleu of Lady 
Looking at the Watteaus at the Louvre^ and then 
took it down from its place. He had discovered 
that he had ceased to be charmed by it ; he had 
been given, or had won, a new, or a fuller, light, 
262 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


263 


by which he had strayed away from it. Yes, it 
was charming ; there was no doubt of that. It 
was a wonderful and graceful piece of work ; but 
somehow now, when he looked at it, he thought of 
Miss Montague, and with annoyance. If this Laiy 
Looking at the Watteaus were to turn about and 
look out of the frame he was sure her eyes would 
have a glitter and stab in them, and she would see 
he was, not just another admirer of the Watteaus — 
but a man. 

He turned it face down on the table and ran 
his knife round the brown paper back, eased up 
the sprigs, removed the print and put it away in a 
portfolio. Then his eyes fell on the photograph 
of that girl in London that Haskell had referred to 
as “ the musical girl ” and, without any analytical 
and introspective arguments whatever, he laid it 
tentatively within the framed mount which had 
held the Lady of the Watteaus and perceived that 
it exactly fitted. He set the photograph in, re- 
placed the back, and put the sprigs in again. 

The postman’s double knock sounded and then 
anon the maid’s tap at his door — if one may call 
her so. 

It was a letter from the girl in London, just the 
usual kind of letter, with little bits of news of 
common friends ; but it seemed different some- 
how, both stronger and closer : 


264 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


Dear Mr. Henry, 

“ Please do not thank me for setting your 
exquisite verse to music ; I have kept you 
waiting for it a long while but, after receiving 
your last letter, I have ceased to reproach my- 
self for the delay as, through it, the song came 
to you when you were most needing it. I am 
glad to have taken some active part in the 
dismissing of Solway. 

“ At the present moment I am furious with 
the Editress of Woman^s Way, and to ease my 
feelings I am going to tell you all the trouble. 
You will understand so well. 

‘‘ Do you remember me telling you of a 
fat, much-ringed woman who sat next to me 
at the Literary Ladies’ Annual Dinner — the 
woman who, when I said that I did not smoke, 
asked : ‘Too prudish ? ’ and to whom I re- 
plied : ‘ No — not imitative ’ ? Well, it is she 
who has angered me. 

“ I had occasion to call at her office, and after 
we had finished business she worked the con- 
versation round to women writers of the day. 
I mentioned Vernon Lee, and what do you 
think the ringed editress said ? ‘ Oh, my dear 
child — Vernon Lee is so masculine ! ’ 

“ I think I gasped. Of course I really am to 
blame, for I should not attempt to discuss 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


265 


literature with Fleet Street women ; they are 
so snobbish and so dishonest — far more so than 
the surburban lady who talks of nothing but 
buttons and lace curtains ; and yet, in spite of 
knowing how foolish it is, whenever I meet 
anyone who has read I am only too happy to 
argue, to compare, in fact to rave ! 

“ But Vernon Lee masculine ! ! ! I looked 
on the fat editress and said : ‘ I do not under- 
stand.’ That was a false step. ‘ You are so 
young, my love,’ she answered. ‘ Vernon Lee 
writes just like a man.’ ‘ Oh, well,’ I said, ‘ she 
does not write like the authoress of ^he Hot 
Widow ^ or ^he Woman who Wanted To^ or ^he 
Mottled Wame ’ (my own invention, by the 
way ; I’m rather proud of it), ‘ but, in my 
opinion, it is she who is unwomanly and not 
Vernon Lee. Besides, we are discussing Art — 
and Art has no sex.’ 

‘‘ When I mentioned ^he Mottled Wame the 
editress chipped in with : ‘ Oh — I’ve not yet 
read that, but I believe it is very good.’ She 
reminded me of the woman you once met — 
to whom you invented first the authors and 
then the works, all of which she had read. 

“ I came out of that office bruised and sick ; 
I wanted to cry and I wished, so much, that 
Solway was near enough to be reached by a 


266 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


tramcar. However, I went home, read some 
essays from Hortus Vita and one or two of 
your poems and now, after having flung this 
off my chest at you, I feel convalescent. If 

you will say : ‘ Oh, d the ringed editress ’ 

for me I shall be quite cured.” 

Bliss Henry put down the letter, and going over 
to Helleu’s Cigarette y took it from the wall, turned 
it on its face on the table, slit the brown paper 
back, removed the sprigs, withdrew the print and 
tore it slowly in pieces, which he put in his waste- 
paper basket. As he was so employed he thought 
of the girl who wrote to him, of her library — he 
saw the books in it : Pater, Yeats, Charles Lamb’s 
letters — he remembered these distinctly. He was 
now so little affected by outside opinion — ^whether 
genuine or insincere — that he did not think there 
might be those who would jeer at her library and 
say that literature was older than that, that there 
were Beowulfs, Maundevilles, Chaucers, Piers 
Plowmen in the world. He was beyond the bitter- 
ness of the academic and the ignorant, emancipated, 
by his new light, so hardly won, from all pettiness, 
whether of the scholar’s den or the street corner. 

He thought of her work on the London press, 
thought of her playing on her piano — which he 
had heard once or twice. Well, he preferred to 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


267 


consider her womanly, rather than to consider that 
editress a fair specimen of woman — she who sent 
out the office boy for Daisy Delilah’s last novel 
because “ I hear it’s naughty.” He preferred to 
look upon her as a typical woman rather than to 
take, as a standard of woman, either May, or Mrs. 
Sturge, or that amazing Fleet Street lady, referred 
to in this letter, or another that he knew (the 
Editress of The Blonde Monde) who did not read at 
all, but was, instead, a member of the Society of 
Lady Writers and went to its dinners and put her 
heels on the table as a sign of her emancipation. 

To hell with them ! ” he said, quite of his own 
accord, fervently. 

He went to his cupboard and hunted among 
some old Studios till he came to the Sargent num- 
ber. He thought he remembered having seen — 
yes — here it was — a reproduction of a pencil sketch 
of the authoress of Hortus Vitce and Hauntings and 
other eminently womanly, and artistic, and ex- 
quisite books — books not bestial. 

“ What has sex to do with art, anyhow ! ” quoth 
he. 

The Sargent sketch fitted the frame of the dis- 
carded Cigarette^ and soon Henry was standing in a 
new room, a quite new room, a room full of the 
peace he desired, the peace he had come seeking 
in Solway, the peace he could have found any- 


268 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


where. After all there were individuals, men and 
women, in the world, as well as beasts, male and 
female. 

And he was not at all lonely. 


XXXVIII 


B liss henry laid down his pen — and heard 
the sparrows at their first chirping in the 
vacant street. He had come home before 
midnight and had written on to the end of his 
book, determined to finish it. And now the task 
was done and he looked up — and felt strangely, 
terribly lonely ; also faint, as though his hold on 
corporeal life was maintained by the merest 
thread. The intense quiet of his room seemed to 
have a word to say to him ; the pale light growing 
in it was like light in the eyes of one supposed to 
be dead. The light grew, the pallid, awful light 
of dawn, that put out the light by which he had 
worked night-long ; and he sat there, utterly and 
awfully alone, the sparrows’ chirpings smiting 
him. 

This last, excessive spurt was due to the fact 
that of late he had been considering more and 
more that he was but writing amusing twaddle for 
the idle, sops to make their futility bearable to 
them, was little more than a pleasing dauber in a 
palace of fools, and he wanted to get the book 
done and then rest. He could not afford to throw 
269 


270 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


it away. He did not think, indeed, that it was so 
futile as to deserve such a fate. He knew that he 
had put into it more than he had put into his 
earlier books, had written this inspired by a wider 
and more philosophic view of the destinies of men ; 
there was here more than persiflage. But he 
wanted, for all that, to finish it — and then rest, rest 
and forget his quixotic hero and his chiffoned 
doll, the heroine, leave them there for ever in their 
charming atmosphere, of which he had so well the 
knack and the name — and then think about his 
own life and his own soul. 

He wrote “ The End,” and rose and drew the 
blind, now yellow with morning, and had a sense 
of seeing the quiet heart of things. But it was still 
terrible to hear the first twitters of the first birds, 
to see the beginning of the day. He felt an im- 
mense pity — for what ? It seemed to be for all 
the sons of men and for all their futile ways. 

His futile book was written, his book of amuse- 
ment for those who were still sleeping and snoring. 
He looked out sadly at the now bursting blue of 
morning. He had seen sunsets, and nights of stars, 
since beginning his book. He had ended it with a 
grey dawn, not sad in itself, but sad to him because 
of something in his heart. But already the grey 
was going, blue and pale gold showing. He turned 
to his table again and wrote the cryptic words : 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


271 


In a world in which to see the sunset gives no 
regret, to see the stars no loneliness, to see the 
dawn no shame.” 

He did not understand the words ; but they had 
come from some very deep place in him. He was a 
changed man somehow, he felt, after writing “ The 
End.” There had been a death somewhere ; or 
there had been an opening of the eyes of the blind : 
he did not know very well what had happened. 
There had been a voice — either a death-cry or the 
cry of one who had been blind and had found 
sight. 

And then he came back to life, had an acute 
sense of reality, was not looking so much at a shift- 
ing of scenes on a vacant stage. He read these 
words again, as if he were not the man who had 
written them but an onlooker — ^wondered what 
they meant. With a tired gesture of his hand over 
his eyes he dismissed them. 

He knew he must now sleep, for he was worn ; 
but he felt he could not sleep till something else 
was done, and so he took pen again and wrote : 

I have finished the blessed book ” — 

and then he wrote on : 

“ Queer, when I finished it I looked up and found 
it was morning and I felt ” 


272 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


and he proceeded to tell, as best he could, the effect 
of that dawn, and then copied the cryptic phrases : 

“ * In a world in which to see the sunset gives 
no regret, to see the stars no loneliness, to see the 
dawn no shame.’ What does it mean ? Can you 
explain it ? ” 

Then he bethought him that he had written no 
name at beginning of his letter. To whom had he 
really written it ? Something moved in his breast 
like a bit of Eternity, and he took an envelope and 
addressed it — to the One Woman that he always 
turned to in thought, as he turned to himself. 

He left the letter on his table to be posted, also 
a note to Mrs. Sturge requesting that he might be 
allowed to sleep, be left undisturbed until he 
rang. 


XXXIX 


H e called on Sir Henry Stubbs, six miles out 
of Solway on the high moor, and watched 
him water his roses that grew in tubs of 
imported earth, for the moor soil was not friendly 
to roses, would nourish only squat firs and juniper, 
bracken and heather ; called also on Miss Fox and 
was entertained graciously in a room with old, 
exquisite furniture spindling with elegant Chippen- 
dale legs on its polished fioors and rugs ; and old 
china glowing in its rare old three-cornered cup- 
boards ; and was taken through the house by Mr. 
Fox to see old portraits and old, quaint prints, in 
hall and on stairs ; and into the study to see some 
Aldines and Elzevirs and quaint Hindoo and Chinese 
idols in jade-stone, incarnations of Brahma and 
Vishnoo. 

He was gently censured for being so long about 
revealing his presence, and frankly explained his 
fear of introductions to “ unknowns ” when em- 
ployed on a long piece of work. He had an internal 
horror all the while that he was a queer visitor, a 
queer person to be introduced by anyone : for 
Solway was on his nerves — his work was done — he 
had now but the desire to be gone — and now that 
s 273 


274 ^ Wilderness of Monkeys 


his work was done he had a feeling of going about 
in a dream-world. Solway was not real. It did 
not exist at all. Sitting at tea with these people, 
so charming, so hospitable, who did not ‘‘ entertain ” 
like the palm-tub people, but were content to be 
simply friendly, he heard their voices far off and 
his own apart from him. Surely he was not really 
there ! He was only looking on ! 

He had a recollection of being taken round a 
garden and seeing a gardener at work ; of looking 
at a tennis-court and saying : “ No ; I don’t play 
tennis ” ; of hoping, more for his publisher’s sake 
than for his own, as these quiet people were friends 
of his publisher’s, that they would not think he 
was drunk ! They could think him a little queer 
if they liked. He remembered that authors are 
often considered queer. Then he heard a voice — 
it was Miss Fox’s now — talking of some great poet ; 
and he answered her with spontaneity. “ He has 
sat in that very chair,” he heard her say. He came 
back to life. Solway seemed real again for a space ; 
no, not Solway ; he decided that this house he was 
in had nothing to do with Solway. 

There he sat talking ; or sat with tea-cup in hand, 
listening, and all the while feeling as if he were not 
here. 

His work was done in Solway — such as it was. 
He should really be gone. 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


275 


Perhaps somewhat so the aged feel before going. 
Perhaps somewhat so the aged join in the conversa- 
tion, move, act occasionally, to tell themselves they 
are really here, but more to tell those around them 
so, as it is expected of them to indicate their 
presence, and old usages die hard. 

He felt, too, that he was introduced here as 
“ Bliss Henry, the author.” Bliss Henry was a 
fraud ; he wrote charming stories about dear, 
quixotic men whose dreams did no harm to anyone, 
because they were only dreams to themselves as 
well as to the onlookers, were never lived out and 
so made true ; dear, quixotic, lovable, absent- 
minded men who were more ‘‘ proposed ” to by 
the heroine in lace than “ proposed ” to her — and 
everybody was satisfied. 

He was a fraud ! 

Fancy on the strength of that, on the strength 
of such twaddle as ^he Jewelled Snwff-Box and 
^he Japanese Fan, being introduced to unknowns 
and sitting down to tea with them and being shown 
their old china and their old portraits ! It was 
very good of them, and sweet, and kind ; but it 
should not be. Something was wrong in a world 
that treated so kindly one who could write these 
merely amusing and distracting books — when such 
a place as Solway existed. Well — he had not in- 
sulted his kind publisher and could truthfully write 


276 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


to him, after all, that he had called on Sir Henry 
Stubbs, and on the Foxes, and had found them all 
charming. He hoped they could as honestly write 
nicely of him — and said farewell. 

Perhaps somewhat thus the aged feel at farewell, 
going away with a memory of pleasant voices in 
the room, and tom-tits flying outside the window, 
and in their hearts a haunting sense of their own 
loneliness, so that every word is delved for des- 
perately, and every slight gesture dictated — ^just to 
show that they are still alive and aware of their 
neighbours. 

When he was really alone, going back to his 
rooms, he felt better — less lonely. The sky was 
over him. He thought, very consciously now, of 
the One Woman and wondered how she fared. 
He had a feeling that if ever she felt as he did, 
then he would like to be near her — so that she 
could run to him and be at peace. 


XL 


<c T means,” she wrote to him in reply to his 
I letter, if I am not mistaken, that you 
have been living a little in Eternity, which 
does not mean that you were intense, or distracted, 
but calm. You make me think of the end of 
Bridges’ Ode, beginning, ‘ Assemble all ye maidens,’ 
of the bit about the eternal who live ‘ the fairest 
moments of their broken dreams ’ ; and you also 
remind me of Vernon Lee’s words about — I have 
her book, I shall quote it ; it is more a spirit she 
gives than a fact — but it is the spirit I am speaking 
of — and the spirit is more than the fact. 

‘ . . . not the ghost of their everyday, hum- 
drum likeness to ourselves, but the ghost of certain 
moments of their existence, certain rustlings, and 
shimmerings of their personality, their wayward- 
ness, momentary, transcendent graces or gracious- 
nesses, unaccountable wistfulness and sorrow, cer- 
tain looks of the face and certain tones of the voice 
(perhaps none of the steadiest), things that seem to 
die away into nothing on earth, but which have 
permeated their old haunts, clung to the statues 
with the ivy, risen and fallen with the plash of the 
277 


278 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


fountains, and which now exhale in the breath of 
the honeysuckle, and murmur in the voice of 
birds, in the rustle of the leaves and the high, in- 
vading grasses.’ 

‘‘ You once mentioned to me something about a 
Saracen king who, when he lay a-passing, said : 
‘ I have lived three hundred and ten eternal days,’ 
or whatever the number was that he had a record 
of so surely. I daresay we could always live eternal 
days, but I gather, though you don’t say so, that 
Solway is not prone to live eternal days. I read it 
between the lines — you are not happy about Solway. 
But I do like that bit of your last letter where you 
broke out with a kind of lyric in it about the colour 
of the place, and the birds wheeling over it. 

“ As for me — thanks for all your enquiries. I 
go on quietly . . 


XLI 


B liss henry was going away, back to 
London. He did not love London; but 
his work here was done. He would go to 
see the One Woman when he returned. She was 
in London. He would be glad to be back there. 
He loved her. 

He saw Drummond in High Street ; and Drum- 
mond stopped to look in a shop window till Henry 
passed — looking surreptitiously at the author’s 
passing reflection, but disliking to meet the real 
man. Drummond was a sentimentalist. Henry saw 
his back with something of loathing. Would that 
man have understood him if he said : ‘‘ I know 
Love ” ? 

Henry walked on, meeting the factory girls com- 
ing from work ; and they passed without oglings 
or asides — some not seeing him, taking him as much 
for granted now as the crest of hills above the 
town ; others, with the stare of wonder in their 
eyes, as at a strange thing. 

He went to say farewell to Jukes, and found him 
in his little office with the glass doors, the catalogues 
and paste-pots round him. 

279 


28 o 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


‘‘ You have come to say good-bye ? Well, if 
you are going, then I must say a queer thing for 
me. I want to say that you have meant a lot to 
me. I once called you a sentimentalist and thought 
you a comical, quixotic character. Now I don’t. 
You’ve done me a world of good. You’ve made 

me see life with new eyes and I’m grateful ” 

“ Oh — please ” began Henry. 

Jukes had his return to a whimiscal smile. 

“ Well,” he said, here you are,” and opened 
his desk, a final offering. It tells what you have 
made me see.” And he drew forth a piece of paper, 
put on his pince-neZy read the words on the paper 
to himself, then handed it to Bliss Henry with a 
little bow, the jolly, irrepressible twinkle in his 
eyes. 

Henry stared. 

‘‘ I’m serious,” said Jukes. 

On the paper, in the colonel’s admirable hand- 
writing, were the words : 

“ Bliss Henry was not a sentimentalist. He 
sought but for what he knew he could get — and 
having got it was satisfied. This do I believe — 
George Jukes.” 

Henry read the odd document and then looked 
up at Jukes. Jukes took off his pince-nez and threw 
them away from him. They dropped with a 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


281 


tinkle, swung a little, and then hung plummet- 
like. 

Henry put the paper in his waistcoat pocket. 


Haskell came with him to the train. They walked 
in silence. 

Then : 

All these ideas of yours, apropos the symbol of 
the pendulum and so forth — is not yours a gospel 
of negation ? ” asked Haskell, in a voice that seemed 
a blending of the dreary and the hopeful. 

“ Gospel of negation ? I don’t know whether a 
gospel of negation is good or bad ; but I can only 
' tell you the truth, in answer : whatever my gospel 
is, it is not a gospel of negation.” Our author flung 
up his head, radiant. “ It is a gospel — if you call it 
gospel — of almost hilarious positivism. No ; there 
is no negation in either my actions or inactions.” 

“ Ah ! You have got to that ! ” said Haskell. 

Sometimes, thinking of your ideas, I have won- 
dered you did not go mad.” 

‘‘ I used to wonder that myself sometimes. But, 
you see, if I could not live a real dream, and find it 
true, I would not have a narcotic dream. There 
have been minds, seeking as I have sought, that 
have become unhinged ; but most of that was 
due to the fact that, not attaining an honest dream- 


202 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


world, they drugged themselves into a spurious. 
Better the real world, as one calls it, than that.” 

“ You would not escape from life so ? ” 

“ The phrase is to me an error. Those who 
have failed, have failed, I expect, because they 
looked at life so, and either took a spurious dream- 
world or cursed God and died. I have not escaped 
from Life. I have found — ^well, found Life. No 
— it was only the loneliness that made me fear 
madness might come — but I don’t feel lonely 
now.” 

Haskell looked at him keenly, to see if there 
existed the light in his eye that is called the fanatic’s 
light. He saw it not — but looking for it he saw a 
nameless, unforgettable something that awed him. 
The whole man was like light ; and Haskell was 
afraid. 

The train came in. 

‘‘ What has Solway done for you ? ” said Haskell, 
staring away along the platform. 

‘‘ I don’t know. I go away a little stunned. 
Solway doesn’t seem to exist at all. I wanted to 
help it — and it has ceased to exist.” 

“ When you recover, then, you will find that 
Solway has strengthened you — to live with what the 
kindest in Solway would call your dreams.” 

Henry stood thoughtful. 

“ I,” he said, have done nothing for Solway.” 


A Wilderness of Monkeys 


283 


Yes, you have.” 

‘‘ What have I done for Solway ? ” 

‘‘ Made some of us at least fair enough to call 
your ideals, your dreams, not futilities 

Then Henry looked on him and smiled and 
Haskell was at ease. They shook hands, Haskell 
(for the guard blew his whistle then) opening the 
carriage door with his disengaged left hand. 

‘‘ You have done a great deal for some of us in 
Solway,” Haskell continued, “ and the whole, as 
you once remarked in my hearing ” (Henry climbed 
in and, standing, closed the door), “is composed 
of the units, and the units will. . . .” 

The train pulled out — out — out of Solway. 


THE END 


WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. 
PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH 



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